USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The Congress of Women : held in the Woman's building, World's Columbian exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 : with portraits, biographies and addresses > Part 25
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WHEN I AM DEAD.
When you are dead and lying at rest, With your white hands folded above your breast- Beautiful hands, too, well I know, As white as the lilies, as cold as the snow- I will come and bend o'er your marble form,
Your cold hands cover with kisses warm,
And the words I will speak and the tears I will shed Will tell I have loved you, when you are dead!
When you are dead your name shall rise From the dust of earth to the very skies, And every voice that has sung your lays Shall wake an echo to sound your praise. Your name shall live through the coming age Inscribed on Fame's mysterious page; 'Neath the towering marble shall rest your head, But you'll live in memory, when you are dead!
Then welcome, Death! thrice welcome be! I am almost weary waiting for thee; Life gives no recompense, toil no gain, I seek for love, and I find but pain; Lily white hands have grown pale in despair . Of the warm red kisses which should be their share.
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Sad, aching hearts have grown weary of song, No answering echo their notes prolong; Then take me, oh Death, to thy grim embrace! Press quickly thy kiss on my cager face, For I have been promised, oh, bridegroom dread, Both love and fame, when I am dead!
The best known of Californian women writers is Ina D. Coolbrith, who stands peerless at the head. There is strength and there is beauty in every line she writes.
Emma Francis Dawson is the author of that celebrated poem "Old Glory." Virna Woods has written "The Amazons," a beautiful little drama of Greek life. Lillian Hinman Shucy has issued a book called "California Sunshine." A quatrain of hers upon the Golden State runs thus:
Sown is the golden grain! planted the vines; Fall swift, oh loving rain, lift prayers oh vines! Oh green land, oh gold land, fair land of the sea The trust of thy children reposes in thec.
A poem by Carrie Stevens Walter is entitled
A WIFE OF THREE YEARS.
He goes his daily way and gives no sign Or word of love I deemed once fondly mine.
He meets my warm caress or questioning eye Without the tender thrill of days gone by.
Once at my lightest touch or glance or word The mighty being of his love was stirred.
And now the clasping of my yearning hand He meets unanswering, does not understand.
He gives no word of praise through toiling years, To say he reads my truth through smiles or tears.
I cannot take for granted as my own The love that speaks not in caress or tonc.
For this, my life's sweet hopes fade sad away; For this, my heart is breaking day by day.
Madge Morris Wagner is a woman upon whose talents an entire chapter might be spent. Suffice it to say that the Liberty Bell, which has lately been cast, was done so at the instance of her poem upon that subject, and she is invited here to the Columbian Exposition to set that bell ringing. But she is a frail creature, physically, in spite of her splendid literary powers, and fears that possibly she may not have the strength for this wonderful day that is awaiting her.
A poem by Madge Morris is as follows:
ON THE DESERT.
Thou brown, bare-breasted, voiceless mystery, Hot sphinx of nature, cactus-crowned, what hast thou done? Unclothed and mute as when the groans of chaos turned Thy naked, burning bosom to the sun. The mountain silences have speech, the rivers sing, Thou answerest never unto anything.
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Pink-throated lizards pant within the shade; The horned toad runs rustling in the heat; The shadowy gray coyote, born afraid, Steals to some brackish spring and laps and prowls Away, and howls and howls and howls and howls,
Until the solitude is shaken with an added loneliness. Thy sharp mescal shoots up a giant stalk,
Its century of yearning, to the sunburnt skies,
And drip's rare honey from the lips
Of yellow waxen flowers, and dies.
Some lengthwise sun-dried shapes, with feet and hands And thirsty mouths pressed to the sweltering sands, Make here and there a gruesome, graveless spot Where someone drank thy scorching hotness and is not; God must have made thee in His anger, and forgot.
Another poem is that entitled " Motherhood," by Mary H. Field.
MOTHERHOOD.
Far, far away, across a troubled sea My wistful eyes espy The quiver of a little snowy sail Unfurled against the sky.
So faint, so far, so veiled in softest haze Its quiet shimmering, Sometimes methinks no mortal thing it is, But gleam of angel's wing.
With my own heart-throb throbs the tiny sail; My sighs its pennons move; And hither steadfast points its magnet toward The pole-star of my love.
What precious gifts do freight this mystic bark There is no sign to show. What frail, small mariner is there enshrined No mortal yet may know.
I only know the soul divine moves there, 'Mid two eternities; Before this secret of the Lord I bow With veiled and reverent eyes.
And vainly does my restless love essay To haste the coming sail; Dear God! not e'en to save from sunken reefs Can love of mine avail.
Yet, will I keep vigil, and in peace, Like Mary, "dwell apart;" Close to the mysteries of God art thou My brooding mother heart.
Ah, heavenly sweet will be my recompense When, every fear at rest, My little bark, all tranquilly, shall lie Safe anchored on my breast.
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In journalism we have many bright names-names of women who find it casy now to survive by means of their pen. The late Mary Therese Austin, under the name of "Betsy B.," achieved fame as a dramatic critic. Adele Chretien is a follower in her foot- steps-the one who was represented in the congress lately held.
"Annie Laurie" is the pen name of one of Chicago's daughters-the sister of Ada Sweet, but now is Mrs. Winifred Black -- a writer on the San Francisco Examiner, who has achieved great things by her powers with the pen. She is a truc journalist, like a soldier, ready to obey orders without question, and thus has investigated and made known many a wrong perpetrated upon the public-has improved the methods of the hospitals and set straight many a wrinkle. These articles in some cases are studies of human nature worthy of preservation as history, or for the use of the future novelist to guide him in writing of the present time. Adeline Knapp writes well and strongly. Charlotte Perkins Stetson is a genius in her line, and has developed of her own accord without regard to the taste of the public, either cast or west.
Eliza Keithis an industrious worker, who says of herself that she has written "for the San Francisco papers miles of space articles unsigned." She is better known as "Di Vernon" (her pen name).
Millicent W. Shinn is the editor of the " Overland," and surrounded by a coterie of young women who already take the rank as writers of promise, fulfills her destiny like Diana surrounded by her maidens. I wish I had the time to tell you of our story writers, for it is they who have given us our literature.
In regard to the portrayal of the simi-Spanish civilization of California, it is a woman who stands casily first-so says the editor of the " Argonaut," who is a critic. Her name is Yda Addis. I can always tell one of her stories before I see the signa- turc. It moves along with a characteristic snap-of-the-whip in it.
Margaret Collins Graham has many stories of Southern California life now appear- ing in the " Atlantic " and other Eastern magazines. Flora Haines Longhead has writ- ten short stories which have made a profound impression upon the minds of the pub- lic. She deals in a kind of heroism that must do the right though the heavens fall. There are many more, but I must hasten.
The women novelists known abroad, as well as at home, are Mrs. Gertrude Frank- lin Atherton and Mrs. Kate Douglass Wiggin. Mrs. Atherton has achieved a style of composition original and strong. Her last stories show a constantly increasing power and grasp, a taking hold on literary workmanship. Her " Doomswoman" is a remark- able book of semi-Spanish civilization, full of pictures of early days. "Amidst the silence of mountain tops in a snow-storm" is one of the felicitous images found in her sentences. A quotation is here made of the picturing power of Mrs. Atherton, which she possesses in a high degree: "We were followed in a moment by the gov- ernor, adjusting his collar and smoothing his hair. As he reached the doorway at the front of the house, he was greeted with a shout from assembled Monterey. The plaza was gay with beaming faces and bright attire. The men, women and children of the people were on foot, a mass of color on the opposite side of the plaza; the women in gaudy cotton frocks, girt with silken sashes, tawdry jewels and spotless camisas, the coquettish rebozo draping with equal grace faces old and brown, faces round and olive; the men in glazed sombreros, short, calico jackets and trousers; Indians wound up in gala blankets. In the foreground were caballeros and donas on prancing, silver trapped horses, laughing and coquetting, looking down in triumph upon the duenas and parents who rode older and milder mustangs and shook brown, knotted fingers at heedless youths. The young men had ribbons twisted in their long, black hair, and silver eagles on their soft, gray sombreros. Their velvet serapes were embroidered with gold; the velvet knee-breeches were laced with gold or silver cord, over fine, white linen; long deer-skin botas were gartered with vivid ribbon; flaunting sashes bound their slender waists, knotted over the hip. The girls and young married women wore black or white mantillas, the silken lace of Spain, regardless of the sun, which might darken their Castilian fairness. Their gowns were of flowered silk or yellow
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satin, the waist long and pointed, the skirt full; jeweled buckles of tiny slippers flashed beneath the hem. A few Americans were there in the ugly garb of their country -- a blot on the picture."
(And far more true to life than Helen Hunt Jackson's " Ramona " which, beauti- ful as it is, does not suit the California standard, because it is not based upon such abso- lute fidelity to history as would make it true.)
The pen of Kate Douglass Wiggin is employed in studies of character, humorous and pathetic, containing that heart touch that makes the whole world akin. This is the bare recital of the literary movement in California for women thus far, as typified in a few names of those who have shown by their clever, original work that they are capable of greater things, and worthy of achievement. But the field of encourage- ment is small, and the growth of genuineness is more rapid than there are laurels for them to wear.
What is to be said of those with hearts aflame, who have died unchronicled and unrecorded? What is to be said of those yearning to tell the story that is in their hearts, who day by day are condemned to fill the journalistic sieves with water? What answer is there for such unfulfilled hopes as these? What answer is there for any of us who have aspirations, longings and desires, and yet fall asleep by the way- side with empty hands? Only the profound belief that that which is good is worth doing without recompense can sustain us through the years. Only in producing that which is true can bring us genuine satisfaction, even though our hands be empty.
I believe in resistance to false standards even though we perish voiceless. I believe that woman in literature must reach out her hands ever toward the infinite standards of right and truth though she perish from hunger and want.
The rank weeds spring in a single night, While rarest plants take years; An evil name may leap to fame, While the good name scarce appears.
But the rank weeds die in the morning light, While the rare plant still lives on; And the evil name will sink to shame While the good name's in its dawn.
The way that is won without any work Is not worth winning at all; A sudden light, a meteor flight, A sprinkle-a trail and a fall.
Fear not, brave heart, whate'er thy lot, Like the coral build deep in the sea, And a beautiful land, with a glittering strand, Shall owe its existence to thee.
And if failure be thy part, oh heart, What compensation shalt thou find For thy weary years and bitter tears, And thy mission half divined?
But this can comfort bring to thee, That like a sounding bell, Men shall say on thy judgment day, "This little work's done well."
THE WOMAN WHO HAS COME. By MRS. CHARLOTTE C. HOLT.
It is said that Max O'Rell, the celebrated French wit, recently made the assertion that if he could choose his nation and his sex, he would choose to be an American woman. If confirmation were needed, therefore, of the fact that this is woman's day, that statement, if true, ought to supply it, for in any other age of the world who ever heard of a man wishing he were a woman. But it seems that in these later days of the nineteenth century-notably this quadri-centennial of .our continent's discovery, the women are making such a stir and assuming a position at once so envi- able and so unique as to attract the attention of many distinguished people. Indeed, a number of our for- eign visitors have expressed themselves very much in the same tenor as Professor Dincha, a Russian dele- gate from the Bureau of Instruction to the World's Fair, who, on being asked what had impressed him most among the national characteristics during his visit to America, replied, " La Femme."
"Your women," he said, "seem very strange to me -they are equal to the men. Down in the city I see a great building, and I am told it is the Woman's Temple. Out at the Exposition one of the finest buildings is the Woman's Building. In the Congresses MRS. CHARLOTTE C. HOLT. at the Art Institute, I see they take an equally prom - inent part with the men. the laws and emancipation. They talk radically on all subjects, even to the changes of This could not be in Russia. I do not understand it." These and other statements of equal force from quarters equally noteworthy are tend- ing to strenghten a belief which we are very willing to hold that the hour and the women have met-that this is woman's day.
We no longer hear of the coming woman. She is here, every one knows it. Aside from a merely intangible spiritual influence, which it is conceded she has been these many years, she is here now as a great visible corporcal and moral factor. Yes. it is a fact; this is the day of woman, and when the excitement and glitter of this wonderful period of the fair is over, when we cease to shine in the reflected light of woman's glory, what have we seen and heard and learned concerning women that we may take with us to inspire us to higher thoughts, to truer aims, to nobler deeds? This is the great question.
Is this to be anything more to us than a great panorama? Is this kaleidoscopic vision to become something more to us than a memory? Woman in the abstract, or rather in the aggregate, seems to have done so much. May we not know woman in the con- crete-that unit from whom we may gather our personal inspiration? It is useless to point out to us the works of art, the paintings, laces, decorations, which this building
Mrs. Charlotte C. Holt was born at New Orleans, La. Her parents were John C. Cushing and Charlotte Waddington Cushing. She was educated at the Chicago High School, and has traveled in the Eastern and Southern United States. She married Granville M. Holt in 1882. Her profession is that of a lawyer. She is a member of the boards of "Chicago Women's Club," " The Protection Agency for Women and Children," and the "State Guardians for Girls." Her postoffice address is 5316 Lexington Avenue, Chicago.
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is so lavishly displaying. These are all the works of genius. We wish to know a little something about the common, everyday, ordinary kind of a woman, to whose emi- nence we may any of us hope to attain. It is of her I wish to speak to you to-day. Not in a spirit of criticism or captiousness, not to detract a particle from the credit due to achievements unparalleled in any age, not to quench the ardor or cool the enthusiasm of any woman, but because I feel, in common with many thoughtful peo- ple, that there is much now in the so-called woman's movement which is superficial and much that may be ephemeral, much that depends for its support upon artificial means and that may be reactionary. We will be apt to take promise for fulfillment, shadow for substance, the means for the end. I believe a little wholesome reflection just at this time is greatly needed. We need to realize that cities do not grow in a day. Characters are not formed in six months, and that the great principles of growth are as absolutely essential in this movement as they have proven to be in all others.
Now the thought which I wish to leave with you today is: That our ideal woman has become a reality. She is here. She is the inspiring cause of much, if not all, of this work; and I wish to present her to you, as I believe she is worthy of emulation, and I believe she will compare favorably with the ideals of other times. She is not drawn from imagination, she is a living, breathing reality, and while I must admit that I have failed to find all of her qualities in many women, she is in the main drawn sufficiently from life to convince us of her existence. She is only here and there among the crowds, but if we search for her we may find her. She is not on exhibition, as I intimated before; she is no genius, and the kind of work she does is not susceptible of statistics or exposition. In the lecture-room she is more often on the benches than upon the stage, and only among her friends is her true worth fully known. None of the superlatives are required to describe her, but when she is once known and fully understood she can always be counted on. She is neither young nor old, she may be rich or poor, plain or beautiful; these are accidents she is in nowise responsible for- but she has a beauty of soul which shines out of her face and makes her seem lovely. Time has not hardened her nor has he passed her by unmarked. She is not over- popular with the world. She cannot train with every passing wind of doctrine, her convictions are strong and she changes them only upon the most unquestionable proof that they are untenable. She has been to school in the great world and is a part of it. Not from choice, nor from the realization of broader opportunities for women, but through stern and bitter necessity. She has learned the great lessons of life under a discipline as unflinching as that of the German army. She long since realized that the greatest good she could do the world was to find the place she was fitted for and to fill it to the best of her ability. She understands herself, is well poised and ready for emergencies. She is not easily diverted from the great purposes of life and devotes herself with great fidelity to the pursuit of her chosen avocation. She realizes that the great drawback to the success of woman in the higher professions, as well as in the less skilled callings is the lack of permanency. And herein is the great secret of absolute equality between the sexes. It is useless to talk of equal work and equal wages until women do give equal work. And we are sure that so long as work is made only a convenient stepping-stone instead of the great object of life, women do not and will not give a service as satisfactory as men do. And I maintain that she may do this without sacrificing any of her higher interests, or the interests of those whom affection or relationship may have made her responsible for. Indeed, all the interests of her life may be adjusted to those of her profession without loss to any.
She does not depend for her success so much upon her knowledge of the amount of gray matter she has in her brain as she does upon the faithful performance of each day's duties. Industry, punctuality and a keen intelligence of the subject matter are more important factors in her work than her influence or a diploma. In work she knows no sex, and while she recognizes the necessity for many such distinctions now, she hopes that if she lives to see another World's Fair there will be no Woman's Building, no woman's separate exhibit, but men's and women's work exhibited
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together, held up to a common standard and rated only upon their merit. This ideal woman is intensely human. She is conscious that whatever else she may be, she is first of all a human being, with all the desires and limitations, with all the faults and aspirations, with all the virtues and failures that are common to the human family. She asks for herself only that which she is willing to concede as right for everyone elsc.
She has learned to look for and find the soul of goodness in things evil, the ele- ment of truth in things erroneous; her greatest quality, the spirit of justice which animates her. She takes reason, not sentiment, for her guide; she requires facts, not feelings, to persuade her; she condemns none, but seeks to find some cause of justifi- cation for all. If man's inhumanity to man makes countless millions mourn, she knows that woman's inhumanity to woman is death to millions more. She has ceased to com- plain of the cruelty of man to her sister woman, for she knows that doubly refined is the cruelty of women to those of her own sex. It is impossible for any man to inflict upon a woman the bitter injustice, the intensity of suffering that is possible for a woman. In warfare men may be cruel to each other, but in peace and among the ordinary types of men there is a freemasonry of spirit, a fraternity of interest which is rarely found among the higher types of women. The sisterhood of woman is talked of, but seldom realized among women, and it is a part of the lifework of my ideal woman to cultivate and extend this spirit of kindliness and courtesy which goes so far to sweeten and soften the dreariest pathway. She has a sister's heart for all women. None are outside the pale of her sympathy and her compassion. She believes with Olive Schriner that " true holiness is infinite compassion for others." She is not dilet- ante; she is earnest. Life is serious with her. She has learned that society at its best is the science of living together in harmony; she believes that the mission of woman is to bring the feminine side of humanity into the world. We have been too long dominated by one sex. She does not desire, however, that we should be domi- nated by the other. The tyranny of woman would be as oppressive as the tyranny of man. The day of muscular force is gone, the day of nervous force has come, and with it has come the works of peace, the hum of industry and the need of women in the outside world-not because she has chosen to enter the field heretofore supposed to be the field alone of men, nor because she has been influenced by others to change so radically the ordinary tenor of woman's way, but because the great unseen forces of life, aching unconsciously, have brought her there, and she appreciates now the impor- tance of her mission. Her journey was begun with as great a reluctance as ever the children of Israel felt on leaving the fleshpots of Egypt for the wanderings in the wil- derness; the luxuries of slavery seemed so much more desirable, even with the sure promise of the milk and honey of freedom; and when we know there are days and years of dreary wanderings in the wilderness, it is no wonder that many stand back appalled and decide to remain-and it is all right for them. Only the man or woman who has faith can ever hope to reach the promised land.
My ideal woman is essentially a domestic woman in the broadest sense. It is im- possible to my mind to conceive of a woman of high type as the woman without a home. If she has but one room she will make a home of it, and it will shine forth as the expression of her own individuality. It is the garden in which she grows herself. It is the one great distinguishing difference between men and women, and in behalf of my ideal woman, my woman of the world, I believe she is more devoted to the idea of home than many of the women of the old régime. And I believe that I can assert without fear of contradiction that hotels and boarding-houses are patronized propor- tionately more by women who are supported by their husbands or fathers than they are by women who support themselves. And further, I believe that every woman whose mind has been broadened by contact with the world is a better housekeeper, knows better how to keep the wheels of the domestic machinery oiled than the woman who never goes outside of the four walls of her home. She manages her household with the same kind of sagacity that a business man manages his factory or his count-
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ing room, one of the first essentials of which is to employ the best help she can find, pay them what their services are worth, trust them, and never nag them. As to the children, it is a wise woman who knows when she is not fitted to raise her own children. On the other hand, if she is so fitted, that is her profession, and she may make its prac- tice remunerative by taking the children of some woman in other professions and for a consideration raising those children. In fact, no more changes will be required in the adjustment of the domestic relations to professional life than the same changes necessitated in the readjustment of economic conditions in other fields now so rapidly taking place. It resolves itself into a question of division of labor, and will naturally settle itself as it is being settled every day by the need that every woman finds of doing the best she can for each day. When women find that by education and training they are worth in some trade or profession twenty dollars to fifty dollars per week, they will not be willing to spend their lives as nurse girl at three dollars per week and board, when for that sum or less or more they can engage the services of a special kindergarten teacher who will undoubtedly train their child more carefully than they can. This may seem a heresy to those who have believed from time immemorial that a mother's first duty was to her children, but I am sure that when we look about us and find how very badly most of mothers do raise their children, my statements may be taken into consideration at least, and I am sure a thoughtful examination of my proposition will demonstrate its correctness. I speak with knowledge and from experience when I say that women who have devoted themselves to the professions usually occupied by men have been women who are remarkable for the fidelity with which they have served their homes and their families, and on the other hand women of the clinging-vine type, who faint easily and are afraid of rats, are women who neither keep house well nor raise well-behaved children.
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