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 32
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This is only a single example, for civilization has a general tendency to subvert woman either into the handmaid of labor or into the queen of the drawing-room. Only a few days ago I found in an American paper that civilization was claimed for a new place-Yellowstone Park, I think it was-on the ground that the ladies there changed their dresses three or four times a day. Is not this a false civilization? Has not Henrik Ibsen been applauded by the public, as well as by the critics, when he showed us in Hedda Gabler that the last kind of woman is no more likely to find true happiness than the first? The gifted and accomplished Hedda Gabler ends in suicide, because she cannot bear to live without influence. Take then a simple-minded woman, like the one old Pestalozzi paints, "Gertrud, who teaches her children." In her humble way, just by teaching her children, she succeeds in reforming not only her own house- hold, but a whole village. And does not history, as well as poetry, teach us that the pioneers of new womanhood are the women who work and gain their influence through personal exertion? In the long run it is neither birth nor money, nor what can be bought for money, but personality which conquers the world. And, as in private life, so in public. Woman, when she demands her rights, is only taking back what belongs to her. Who cared for the sick, the poor, the children in olden times, if not the women? Only when all these cares were put under public supervision was woman shut out from them, and now has to fight her way back to the duties which her mother heart and her womanly feeling cannot let alone. Even political rights, for the first time in civil- ized life, have been taken out of her hands by modern constitutions. In 1661, when the last Danish parliament, according to the old constitution, was held, votes were passed for women owning property. Since then thousands and thousands of men, who had no rights formerly, have come in as voters, but no woman's vote is now laid upon the scale in the old countries. As the New England women taught the Puritans that they could not do without free and equal women, so is the Western woman of America of our day teaching the world that womanhood must not be shut out from public life if we do not want it to be crippled, one-sided and poor. It is for the woman of civilization-nay, any woman, wherever she lives, if she knows how to reign -- to make her influence felt for good, as the society lady does, and at the same time to work, to make herself real useful, as the factory girl does-it is she who is the pioneer of modern womanhood.
HISTORIC WOMEN OF EGYPT. By MRS. CAROLINE G. REED.
Eve, the beautiful mother of our race, with every function, physical and mental, in perfect order to transmit health and immortality to her posterity, must have troden in its pristine verdure the soil of the wonderful land of Egypt.
Three hundred and thirty-four years after Menes, the first king of Egypt, the succession of women to the throne of Egypt was made valid, and nearly a thousand years later Nitocris, " the beautiful woman with rosy cheeks," while floating in her barge from Philæ to Memphis, beheld with pride the glory and pomp of her own people. Three hundred years after the reign of Nitocris history discloses a woman who should become the mother of nations, Sarai, the beau- tiful wife of the rich Chaldean Satrap Abram, jour. neying from the plains of Chaldea by way of Haran and Damascus toward Egypt, the seat of learning then at the zenith of its glory. So beautiful was Sarai that the princes and courtiers of Egypt reported her charms to their sovereign, who brought her to his court. In the retinue of Sarai at her departure, as one of her bondswomen, presented to her by Pharaoh, was Hagar, a magnificent Egyptian woman, who like her mistress was to become the mother of mighty MRS. CAROLINE GALLUP REED. nations. All of the Israelites from that day to this have looked to Sarai as their mother, and all of the Arab races and the Bedouins of the desert and the Ishmaelites of the East rejoice in being called the sons of Hagar.
A century later the famous Queen Hatasu, as she gazed from her terraced palace, and lifting her eyes northward, could see, glittering like constellations, the points of the obelisks which she had set there in honor of her father. Two-and-a-half centuries after Hatasu, in the grandest era of Egypt's glory, we see descending from the porch of the palace of the great Rameses a princess of the blood royal with her train of maid- ens to bathe in the river of Egypt. There, amid the flags on the banks, she beheld a Hebrew child, a weeping infant boy, hidden by his sister Miriam to escape the edict of the monarch who had commanded every Hebrew male child to be destroyed. The heart of the royal lady was touched with compassion. She sent Miriam for a Hebrew nurse, and his mother pressed her child to her breast again. Adopted by the Prin- cess, taught by his mother in the knowledge and faith of his own people, Moses became the deliverer and lawgiver of his people. It was Miriam, the prophetess, the sister who had watched over him amid the rushes of the Nile, who stood by him on
Mrs. Caroline Gallup Reed was born in Albany County, New York, August 5, 1821. Her parents were the Hon. Albert Gallup and Eunice Smith Gallup, both descended from the founders of Connecticut. She was educated at the School of St. Peter's Church, Albany, N. Y., and at the school of the Misses Carter, Albany. After four years at the Albany Female Academy. graduated in 1839, and has traveled several times in Europe and in the East, spending the winter of 1891 and 1892 in Egypt. She married in 1851 the Rev. Sylvanus Reed, a priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Her special work has been in the interest of the Episcopal Church, the care of her family and of the Reed School, New York City, which was founded in 1864, and has graduated many of the most accomplished women in this country. She has written many essays on various topics. Her profession has been for thirty years that of a teacher and head of a school. In religious faith she is a member of the Anglican branch of the Catholic Church. Her postoffice address is East Street, New York City, N. Y.
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the eastern shore of the Red Sea, and with all the women of Israel came out with timbrels and dancing to take up the great autiphon to the Song of Moses and the hosts of Israel.
Then came the Greeks to Egypt with their graceful women and modern customs, and later on, Cambyses the Persian, with his beautiful wife, true heir to the throne of Egypt, and for two hundred years the Persians had dominion, until Alexander con- quered Darius at Issus. The Ptolemies brought their learning and gayety to Egypt. The Cleopatras became co-regents with the Greek kings of Egypt for half a century. It was by the seductive charms of Cleopatra VII., when Cæsar and Antony in turn were her captives, that Egypt became a Roman province.
About this time there arrived in Egypt a family party journeying from Bethlehem. They were Joseph, a just man, the young and gentle Mother Mary, and her perfect child Jesus. They had fled to the land of Egypt to preserve the life of the Divine Child, and that Child sanctified the land by the first steps He ever trod.
Roman matrons, pagan and Christian, dwelt in Egypt for two centuries. The Empress Helena built religious houses throughout Egypt near to the ancient temple of Osiris, Horus and Pan, lifting the cross of Christ amid the emblems of heathenism.
The privacy and seclusion of the Moslem women have not prevented them from influence and intrigue in the politics of the past twelve centuries. In our days, in the triumphal pageant of the Suez Canal, the Empress Eugenie vied with Cleopatra in pomp and luxury, and the cicerones descant upon the places visited by her with as much pride as upon those associated with Cleopatra.
And what shall we say of the gentle and beautiful wife of Tewfik-his only wife? Only one who has seen her in her great palace surrounded by her maidens can fully appreciate the life of the highest woman in Egypt today Of high breeding, and with the various accomplishments of European women of her rank, familiar with modern literature, of most affable manners and sprightly conversation, she might pass for a Parisian of the highest social talent. Her description of the devices to which she resorted to see the performers at the opera over the screens, without showing her face, was most amusing as well as historic, as an incident of Oriental customs. The Harem of the opera is as impenetrable as that of the palace or the home, As the screens were high, they could only see by standing and holding their cushions above their faces and peeping between the cushions and the screens. She talked with maternal pride of her sons, then at school in France, and exhibited their photographs. Far from envying the European princesses and American ladies, she said: "Oh I could know well but twenty or thirty men at most, and I am content with the affection and society of one." There must indeed be a power in custom and education which could make such a woman happy and contented to have a fancy ball in the superb salons of her own royal palace, with music and flowers and feasting, filled with the beauty and chivalry of all nations, and, though herself dressed for the ball in the costume of Mary, Queen of Scots, to view the scene through a screen embroidered with palms and flowers. She saw her husband and his nobles talking and dancing with English, French and American ladies, but none of the ladies could enter the sacred precincts of her presence. The only man allowed to enter the house of a modern Egyptian woman is the physician, and then, whatever the occasion of his visit, the eunuch is always present.
In a visit to the Khedive with Lady Greenfel, whose husband, Sir Francis, is at the head of the Egyptian army, a line of Egyptian women stood in the antechamber to speak to her as she passed. Each had a petition for place or promotion in the army for husband, brother or son. Not to the wife of Tewfik within her own palace, but to the wife of the English commander were the appeals of the Egyptian women made.
The prominent and presiding women of a few years ago were Lady Baring, now Lady Cromer; Lady Greenfel, the young, beautiful but unconventional wife of Gen. Forrester Walker, and Lady Charles Beresford. The Civil Service, the Army of
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Occupation, the Egyptian army and navy were there to guard the interests of Egypt. Young Englishmen of noble families dance and flirt with English girls at private balls and clubs. Social rivalries and social mistakes in a system not yet crystallized con- ventionally make as much gossip as when Cæsar and Antony and the Romans entered upon the social platform before the Ptolemies had departed.
While I was in Egypt a censor came from England to review the armies and to define some lines of military and social etiquette, which caused unreserved comment. But the highest power had spoken, and though a Briton may scold yet he obeys. When the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief of the English armies, repri- manded a young officer who forgot to order his company to salute, saying, "You spend time in dancing which should be spent in studying your tactics," all the army approved. When he said to the pretty wife of the general commander of the Army of Occupation, who drove upon the parade ground with a young girl in a pony cart, " Madam, you are the wife of the highest military officer in Egypt. You represent the women of England, and you should sustain the dignity of the situation. In this pageant on this day only Lady Baring should precede you. Your equipage, with all the pomp you could command, with your runners and your mounted postilions, should have been next to hers, and preceded Lady Greenfel and all others. You must acquaint yourself with the rules, responsibilities and duties public and social of your position; and, Madam, if you flirt, which I suppose you must, let it be with your hus- band's equal, a major or a general-let it not be with your husband's aid-de-camp." I did not hear it, but authority and all Cairo affirm that her ingenious reply was, " I do not know what your grace can mean!"
At the time of my visit there were sojourning in Egypt very many American ladies, some who had filled at home the highest position which society and the gov- ernment can give. One had entered the White House at Washington a young girl, and taken position, not as wife or daughter, but niece of the President of the United States. No authority ever gave a reprimand to her, no censor ever found a flaw in her administration.
Egypt is now trodden by women, and one who has just departed this life, Miss Amelia B. Edwards, has done more to discover and reveal to others the interesting story of this land than any other woman who ever lived.
HENRIK IBSEN AND BJORNSTJERNE BJORNSON.
By MRS. NICOLINE BECH-MEYER.
It is said about great men that they create their own age or a coming age. In one sense of the word this is not true. Man cannot create a leaf on the tree, much less a coming age. It is the eternal spirit of life, existing from times unknown, that spirit which con- stitutes the light of our eye and the strength of our hand, which is leading humankind along inexplicable roads toward one and the same aim-fulfillment of all promises, perfection of all possibilities. The spirit of humankind, being at the same time contents and form, must work through outward forms; undividable as it is, the spirit of all mankind works at the same time, through the single individual. There are times for rest and for consummation of what was given; and there are times where burning tides of spirit sweep across the world, where it makes way for itself and bursts forth through man and woman.
Thus our great men and women are created by the accumulated forces of past and present genera- tions. Hence we in great poets, philosophers, musi- cians and artists find the standard progress of their age. "He was ahead of his time," some say. Not so. But the hidden forces of the time were to such a degree personified in one individual that it seemed to MRS. NICOLINE BECH-MEYER. those hitherto blind as a revelation. Great minds have ears which hear the voices of by-gone ages and catch the unspoken prophecies of times to come; they have eyes which look through the covers of their own time and through the curtain of the future. Time and eternity is through them brought together in unity. There are times where the pressure of the spirit is so powerful that no single individual could give vent to it; then we see two or more kindred spirits raise side by side, revealing the same facts, though each in his own way. So in the Roman nations in the days of the renaissance, and the same again in Germany, when Goethe and Schiller represented the spirit of their time.
The Norsemen, those contributors to the common treasury of mankind, unequaled among occidental nations, had for centuries appeared to be asleep. It seemed as if the creating spirit of mankind had left the icebergs and taken its abode in warmer climates.
Those northern people who, in "the old and the young Edda," gave to the world
Nicoline Bech was born on the heaths of Jutland, where her father was a teacher. She was educated in her home by studying the Bible, the old Gothic sagas and the folk-lore of the Northern nations. Later she went to Copenhagen and regis- tered in Natalie Zahle's college for public teachers. She took a diploma with the highest degree. She there took up her pen as writer to the best Scandinavian illustrated weekly, "Nutiden." She became engaged to Axel Meyer, of Copenhagen. The young man went to Kansas, and about a year after she followed him. They were married in Stockton, Rooks County, Kan- sas. In the seventh year of her married life some of the leaders of the reform party in Denmark wanted Mrs. Bech-Meyer to come home and lecture about the United States. She went with her children, her husband moving to Chicago. For half a year she remained in Denmark, lecturing. Her books, "Sketches from Kansas" and "Divided Opinions," a novel, were published in Copenhagen. Toward the fall of 1891 she with her children set sail for Chicago again, where she engaged in writing for several papers: "The Parthenon," "The Union Signal," "Goodform " and "The Sculptor News." In 1893 her native country entrusted her with the honor of representing Denmark at the Woman's Congress and at the Peace Congress. Her postoffice address is Chicago.
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what the Bible and Homer was to the southerners, were through climatic and geo- graphical conditions so excluded from the rest of the world that it seemed as if all they could do was to preserve the treasures from the childhood of the nation. Den- mark, being the country closest connected with the continent, had its great minds of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, none of whom, however, being wide enough to become universal, except Hans Christian Andersen.
Norway, during its " four hundred years of sleep," seemed to have lost its power of production; but those who looked with eyes undimmed by the cover of time would have seen a work going on deep in the life of the nation. The folk-lore bursting with tales about brownies, hobgoblins, spirits of icebergs, waters and mountains, the sagas of their warriors and kings, were there, though unknown to the world. When- ever the eternal spirit was revealed to man through man, it has been in the garb of the nation in which it appeared. In the childhood of the race the outward forms attracted the eyes more than the contents. Thus the early literature became object- ive more than subjective. It was descriptive and picturesque, as in Homer. With the growth of the nations the subjective element appeared, until it, as in the German school of philosophers and poets, threatened to run into abstraction.
The present time brings the dawning idea of universal unity, of the oneness of soul and body, of man and woman, of nation and nation; therefore, the great minds of our age must represent the objective and subjective element as inseparably one.
The ancient times, with their intense love of life and beauty in outward forms, must be united with the search for eternal principles revealed in those forms. And when it comes to that, where could we expect to find the intense desire for individu- ality-that is, the one as a world, the world in one-more than in the nation which, during centuries, had the echoes from the Edda's sounding in its cars.
When at last the spirit burst forth, astonishing the world, locating itself in old Norway, there were such uncontrolled forces to gather, such walls to be broken, such floods of light to be dealt out in all directions, that one individual would be insufficient as medium. And the nation saw Henrik Ibsen and Björnstjerne Björnson arise side by side. Through their work is sounding the words from the Edda:
See, it is rising, The sunken land; Green as a springtime, It grows from the ocean. * Harvest shall comc From fields unsown. Weak and strong together inhabit Abode eternal. Do you understand this? *
As children we only saw half of a table; only a corner of a room at a time was brought to the consciousness of our mind. Growing up, we slowly commenced unit- ing fragments, and with surprise we saw a whole grow out of them. Thus with the evolution of the human race. At a time only body was acknowledged; at a time only soul; humankind has been divided into races, into nations, into men and women and children. The leaders of the spiritual life of this generation would, according to the laws of evolution, have to represent the unity of one and the unity of all. Therefore, it is said about the newest literature, that its peculiar feature is its striving to solve individual and social problems, while the greatest minds of the German school mainly were dealing with philosophical problems. Ibsen's mission might be defined as the seeking to find "God in one; " Björnson's as the seeking to find " God in all." Thus the two are completing each other. Ibsen's book, "Brand," was the first work to carry his name all over the brother countries.
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Brand is a preacher who, in his search for truth above all things, leaves the orthodox church, refuses a sure income, sees his child die and his wife suffer through all the hardships to which they are exposed in his self-chosen working place. "Noth- ing or all " is his motto.
If you wish the name of soul, You must be an entire whole. * * * Not in fractions, not in halves; Be a whole, or thou art doomed.
** It is not martyrdom to perish In suffering on a cross of wood; But are you willing thus to die? Willing in suffering of flesh, Willing in agony of mind, Willing to conquer in the strife? Your will shall be your crown of life.
He came seeking individuality in a society where public opinion was the opinion of each single individual, where everybody acted as the rest acted; hence there at times was almost bitterness in his view of society. In the poem, "The Miner," he says:
Down below, down below, That is where I want to go; There is peace from chaos sleeping. Break my way, thou heavy hammer, To the treasures safe in keeping.
Hammer blow on hammer blow, Till the hours of life are waning; Here no morning star is shining; Here the sun of hope is hidden. * *
And in the song, "On the Heights:"
Now I am stalwart; I follow the call Which tells me the heights to explore. Here on the mountains is freedom and God; Down below they are groping in darkness. * * * * *
Sorrow and joy are really expressions of the same kind of feeling; they are both born of the longing for life in its fullness. They are lying close together, the element of sorrow being an intense desire to embrace joy and become one with it. Goethe has felt this when he said:
" Wer nie die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Bette weinend sasz, Wer nie sein Brod mit Thränen asz, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte!" (He who never through the live-long nights) (Sat weeping on his bedside,) (He who never ate his bread with tears, ) (He does not know ye, ye heavenly powers!)
Thus he who has the clearest conception of the ideal set before us; he who with a burning will wants to see this ideal established among us-he will feel with the deep-
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est sorrow how far from perfection both he and the rest of humankind still is standing; with sorrow; and with bitterness if he realizes that society at a given time is deaf to his expostulations. But never was Ibsen despairing; never did he in his war against privileged fractions and halves reach the point where he lost his faith in life and truth as the triumphing powers at last. He who sees the ideal in its beauty, but despairs of its ever being realized among mankind, will lay down his weapons and prefer death to a life without meaning.
From the time when Henrik Ibsen in " Brand" showed colors, he never has ceased to declare the same over and over again: the necessity of each individual being an entire whole, if we ever want a society which represents an entire whole.
He is solemnly earnest in his way of working, and his force is so great that he is always above his subject. Whenever his muse happens to carry him into sunnier regions it moves us strangely; a smile on a very earnest face has a beauty of its own never to be resisted. The poem, "Thanks," shows how far he can reach in peaceful, heart-felt lyric:
THANKS.
Her sorrow was each trouble Which met me on my way; Her happiness the spirits Which came to me to stay.
Her home must be located On liberty's main, Where the verses of the poet Their force and freedom gain.
The character and features That silently step in To take their seats around me, Are her family and kin.
Her aim it is to lighten All darkness in a glow, To be my strength in stillness That the world should never know.
But just because she always Not even thanks awaits, I sing her now and print her A song of thanks and praise.
As the storm purifying the air, and the sun afterward calling forth life, thus do the two Norwegian poets complete each other. To the present generation is revealed a wider understanding of the word love.
Punishment, condemnation, temptations, are words slowly dying out of the lan- guage of intelligent men and women. This universal love is the Alpha and Omega of Björnson's teachings. In him was personified the hope and strength of a new human belief, from the moment when he in his first youth sang out:
Lift thy head, thou youthful lad; Even if hopes are crushed, be glad; Others greet thee in the sky, Fraught with blessings from on high. .
* * Lift thy head and look around; Don't you hear the joyful sound -- How it with a million tongues In the air around thee sings?
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