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 95
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The lamp of memory. Ruskin says: "It is in becoming memorial or monu- mental that true perfection is attained." An architect conceives within his soul some vast structure; carefully he selects material that will endure, and carefully he builds; each pillar is in place, and the dome crowns all. The completed structure, though it appeals but to the eye while we are bound down to earth sense only, is like some grand oratorio that the soul may hear-music that has been caught and frozen into form. Like the architect, the musician longs to leave behind him just such noble work that may be a worthy memorial. As the architect scorns all tawdry ornament which detracts from the dignity of the building, so does the music builder scorn all light, trashy combinations of sound which may tickle the ears of the groundling, but which can not stand as memorial work. All true work must be memorial. The thought of the ideal demands that the lamps of future memory guide toward the leaving a worthy monument of the artist's better self. The ideal that walks ever by the side of and outlives physical man; the ideal that compares with the real as eternity compares with time; the ideal self can never forget, even when long centuries have passed, and men have forgotten the dust that once was infused with life by that ideal.
Oh lovers of music, strive to have worthy monuments of your work! Hold in uplifted hands the lamp of memory, that its rays may be sent forward toward a grand memorial erected in honor of the God-given gift that is yours.
Obedience! Is not the lover of art a worshiper at art's high altar? Will he not listen ever closely for the voice that commands his homage, and will not one who so loves follow without question, even through weary years of loneliness and toil? To obey, even though it seems to tear the heart from all the ties of earth-loves!
Surely 'tis a solemn thing to enter the gate-to cross the threshold of the palace of art-for one may not play at going in and out. There is no turning back without sacrilege. A gift once laid upon the altar can not be recalled, and obedience is the law in the art world-obedience to the masters. One may not trifle with an art sub- lime. Far better take up some petty trade and be faithful thereto than seek to be an artist if the whole soul be not in deepest earnest. " Better pursue a frivolous trade in
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serious meaning than a divine art frivolously." Look to it that there be loyal obedi- ence, even unto death if need be!
The rays from the lamp of obedience must mingle with the other guiding lights, and in the blending of the seven we shall find the perfect sevenfold light which will make the darkness as the noonday. As to the architect, so to the musician; these lamps must be the guides. When the way is dark, and gray clouds gather thick and fast, and the heart is weary, does the artist sit down in the dark and moan and weep and become entangled in the folds of the commonplace, whose limbs reach out among ali ranks to drag down to earth those who fain would rise above? If so, let him not claim brotherhood with those who are yet aspiring. Ile has sold his birthright for a mess of pottage that will never satisfy the craving of his soul, whose hunger may be appeased only when the new birth comes to him, when he shall be born into that life of which true artists while on earth catch faint glimpses in a dream.
From the time the morning stars first sang together, from the time when Miriam rejoiced triumphant in singing with her maidens,
"Sound the loud trumpet o'er Egypt's dark sea, Jehovah has triumphed, his people are free,"
down through the ages until the beloved disciple, seeing through cycles of time, tells us of the song which has been sung in highest Heaven by the glorified worshipers, the song no man could learn save those redeemed from earth-from that time gradually unfolding its pages, developing into an art of wondrous and mysterious beauty, music, like some strange flower opening its leaves to the light, has gradually opened petal after petal, and we stand in awe as we catch faint glimpses of what the entire flower may be when all is perfected.
Perchance-who knows-this great music-thought of God may be advancing and growing greater as the ages pass, in order that it when perfected may be earth's great- est offering to Him whose first coming was heralded by music of the heavenly host, on Bethlehem's plain, when was sung,
"Glory to God in the highest,
On earth peace and good will to men."
THE DAWNING OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. By MRS. MARY SEYMOUR HOWELL
We stand today in the dying light of the nineteenth century and in the dawning of the twentieth. If you and I could have chosen when to have existed I think there would have been no more inspiring time than now. Look back fifty years, and from the dim twilight of the tallow candles of those days we stand now in the brilliant electric light of this year eighteen hundred and ninety-three. Look back farther still and we find that the battle of New Orleans was fought three weeks after the treaty of peace had been signed in England, because no electricity bound together the . two continents. Now New York and London talk together as two men face to face. A dynamite explo- sion under London bridge is read by you in your evening paper, one hour after it happened, and by our time five hours before it really occurred. We talk with those we love the best hundreds of miles away, as though they were in the next room. We catch their dear voices and catch the merry mirth of their laughter. We travel in elegant cars nearly equal to our finest drawing-rooms. We sleep on luxurious beds and dine better than the kings of old on our rail- roads that carry us even in midwinter all over this great country without the least discomfort. Look MRS. MARY SEYMOUR HOWELL. back again fifty years and see our fathers and mothers making their way in cold, comfortless stages over terrible roads, taking days where now we take as many hours. My friends that listen to me today, this progress has not come easy, and if it had been prophesied fifty years ago I think the prophet would have been mobbed or thrown in jail. Again, this progress has not come from con- servatism, it has come from the persistent efforts of enthusiastic radicals; men and women with ideas in their brains and courage in their hearts to make them practical. As the first steamship crossed the Atlantic it brought to America the first copies of Doctor Lardner's book proving that an ocean steamship was an impossibility. What strange reading this book would be now for a traveler after a lapse of fifty years, when twice a week a fleet of ocean steamers leave New York City for the different ports in Europe. There are scores of books prophetic of the impossibility of equal rights for men and women in education, industry and politics that will be even more absurd after an equal lapse of time. In all this progress woman has been in the van. With the prejudice of the ages confronting her on every hand she has pushed steadily for- ward and the stone wall of opposition is beginning to crumble. Indeed, now it is tot-
Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell is a native of New York. She was born August, 1848. Her parents were Norman Seymour, a kinsman of Gov. Horatio Seymour, and Frances Hale Metcalf, a cousin of Salmon P. Chase. She received a classical edu- cation at the Mount Morris Academy and Mrs. Laura Ralston's Seminary for Young Ladies at Lockport, N. Y. She has trav- eled extensively in the United States and Canada. She married Mr. George Rogers Howell, Presbyterian clergyman and author. Her only child, Seymour Howell, a young man of great promise, died a Junior at Harvard College March 9, 1891. Her principal literary works are contributions to the press and a book not yet published entitled, " Glimpses of Immortality." She has fourteen lectures and is now under the care of the " Bryant Literary Union," New York City, and " Woman's Lecture Bureau," and is national lecturer for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In religious faith she is a devout believer in Christ. She now attends the Presbyterian Church, and believes in the union of all churches under a liberal creed. Her postoffice address is Albany, N. Y.
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tering and we must get out of the way, the stone still standing, before the full dawn of the twentieth century is here. Ever since woman began to think for herself, ever since woman took life in her own hands, the dawning of a great light has flooded this world. We are the mothers of men. Show me the mothers of a country and I will tell you of its sons.
The destiny of the world today lies in the hearts and brains of its women. This world can not travel upward faster than the feet of its women are climbing the paths of progress. Put us back if possible, veil us in harems, take from us all knowledge, make us beasts of burden, teach us we have no souls or brains, and this carth goes back to the Dark Ages. The nineteenth century is closing over a world arising from bondage. It is the sublimest closing of any century the world has ever beheld. The nations of the earth have seen and are still looking at that luminous writing in the heavens, " the truth shall make you free," and for the first time are gathering to them- selves the true significance of liberty. The freedom that endures comes not with the clash of arms and din of battles. The victory that is lasting is not gained on bloody battle-fields or by the selfish arbitration of scheming men. Blood and battles may be a means to an end, but the liberty of the sons of God must be in the souls of men, must be the very blood of that soul's life, and thus far in the history of this world it has never been fully known. The dying light of the nineteenth century beholds it in the dawning rays of the twentieth, because the mothers of men are, for the first time, putting on the beautiful garments of liberty. We need, and the world needs, our political freedom. Even our social and religious liberty is worthless without political liberty. Let us this morning dedicate ourselves anew to our labor for woman, and go forth with braver souls, cleaner brains and more resolute purpose to our work for these years.
I would have the women of our country so aroused to the greatness of the work and the few years that are left us in this century; so filled with zeal, determination and enthusiasm that the Congress of the United States and our legislatures may know and understand that our freedom must be fully granted to us by 1900, so that the twentieth century shall dawn on a "government of the people, for the people and by the pco- ple." Now it is a government of the men, for the men, and by the men. God bless the men.
It is the evening of the nineteenth century, but its twilight is clearer than its morning. I look back and I see each year improvement and advancement. I sec woman gathering up her soul and personality and claiming them as her own against all odds and the world. I see her now asking that that personality be felt in her nation. I see old prejudices giving way. All reforms for the elevation of humanity have the great woman heart in them. Have I been too radical? Would you have me more conservative? What is conservatism? It is the dying faith of a closing century. What is fanaticism? It is the dawning light of a new era. Yes, my friends, a new era for the world will dawn with the twentieth century. I look forward to that time with beating heart and bated breath. I lean forward to it with an impatient eagerness. I catch the first faint rays of that beautiful morning. In the East the star has appeared and soon the full dawn of the twentieth century will be upon us. I sce a race of men, strong, brave and truc, because the mothers of men are free, and because they gave to their sons the pure blood of liberty.
Hail, then, twentieth century, and hasten on thy coming! Go to thy grave, oh, nineteenth century! A century that will stand out for all time as an epoch that buried slavery and ushered in liberty. A century that had a Lincoln who wrote his name among the stars as a lover of the free. A century that saw enfranchised the colored race and woman. A century that had its peerless Wendell Phillips, its dauntless William Lloyd Garrison, its indomitable Sumner and its irrepressible Seward. A century that had its brilliant Chase, its eloquent Frederick Douglass, its commanding and uncon- querable Gerrit Smith and its glorious old John Brown. A century that has known its Greeley, its Garfield and its Grant. A century that has had its great statesmen,
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Webster, Clay and Calhoun. A century that has had its Stephen Douglas and its Horatio Seymour. A century that has known its Elizabeth Barrett Browning, whose verses wedded together Italy and England. A century that has had its Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose "Uncle Tom's Cabin " has been read only less widely than the Bible. A century that has had its George Eliot, who took the name of a man that she might reap a man's reward. A century that has known an Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a Lucy Stone, a Frances Willard, a Florence Nightingale, a Clara Barton, and hosts of other grand women, will stand out to the ages as a century pre-eminent for women of vigorous thought and strong minds, who waged without bloodshed the greatest battle of all time, and whose victories will usher in the dawn of the twentieth century. When the historian shall make up the record of the nineteenth century, these noble men and women will be found on the roll of the illustrious ones who have adorned and ennobled the world.
The late lamented William Hunt of Boston has two paintings in the Assembly Chamber of the State of New York. One is entitled "The Discoverer." It represents a man in a little boat on the trackless deep. He stands with folded arms looking calmly and fearlessly into the future, for a woman is at the helm and safely guides the little craft. Another woman is partly in the water with her head bowed on her arms which clasp the side of the boat, the very embodiment of despair. That picture fitly represents the nineteenth century. The companion picture is called " Darkness Flee- ing Before the Dawn." The darkness is represented by wild horses that plunge and throw themselves madly about as if to escape the approach of light, and that inspired, that immortal artist painted that dawning as a woman. The picture is ever before me and I leave it with you. Superstition, ignorance, injustice, intemperance, impurity, all fleeing before the coming of women. My friends, that picture represents the dawning of the twentieth century. Then in the effulgence of our nation's trium- phant and glorious career, the noble and the true representatives of fifty millions of women gathering from the North and South, the East and West will meet in the beau- tiful capitol of our republic and with one loud acclaim shout, " Daughters of America, the home of the brave and the land of the free, arise and shine, for thy light has come and the glory of the Lord is arisen upon thee."
THE MONOLOGUE AS AN ENTERTAINMENT. By MISS JENNIE O'NEIL POTTER.
One night, in the year 1891, after listening to a monotonous elocutionary recital in Chickering Hall, New York, I returned home with rather a heavy heart, feel- ing that I had chosen the wrong profession.
Retiring to rest in a listless manner, I fell into a dreaming sleep. Again I was wending my way to a soliloquist's entertainment, but the place seemed changed. Instead of a dimly lighted corridor, electric flashes in bright-colored globes gave splendor to the scene. There was a clamor for seats, and every one seemed expectant and happy. As I entered the audi- torium, the odor of sweet flowers filled the air. I could see no orchestra, but the low, soft music that stole out and rested sweetly upon our cars, told that they were there, sercened by palms and foliage.
I scanned my program closely. Is this to be an clocutionary entertainment? thought I. On deli- cate perfumed cards I read: " Monologue Dramatic- The Life of Woman in Tableaux." By whom imper- sonated I could not discover. A party of giggling girls back of me were wondering who she was, and whence she came.
Looking back and through the closely seated hall, MISS JENNIE O'NEIL POTTER. my eyes were dazzled and pleased with the appear- ance of the audience. Not a hat marred the many lovely faces there. Now and then a spray of forget-me-nots, or a curl of bright ribbon nestled around a fair girl's head. And like sunbeams peeping through a shaded grove, diamonds and precious jewels flashed. The men were all in evening dress, wore gloves, looked wide-awake and brilliant as the women.
Suddenly a hush: The music swells and the curtain rises. Our eyes linger on the dainty stage, turned so deftly into a perfect bijou of beauty. Soft silken draperies covered all the angles of the ungraceful platform. Rugs, rich and soft, were carelessly strewn upon the floor, while roses, white and red, nodded and welcomed us there. In the distance we heard the ripple and laugh of a child's voice, and rushing before our cyes came the figure of a little girl, clad in tiny frock and pinafore. In her arms she carried a doll, and as the applause died away, she fitted here and there, now with her doll then with her playmates, weaving with imaginary friends wreaths of flowers, and serving them all a cup of tea from her cherished tea set. On and on in merry laugh- ing childhood, only to be turned to tears when she finds that her doll and tea set have been spirited away.
She fades from our view, but in a moment she returns to us, now older and stronger grown, her girlish form decked out in mannish clothes. Stepping lightly from off her bicycle she unrolls a manuscript on "Woman's Rights." Here we saw
Miss Jennie O'Neil Potter was born in Patch Grove, Wis. She is a young woman of much talent and energy. Miss Potter is a gifted and cultured elocutionist, and is meeting with great success presenting monologues. She first appeared in New York in 1889, and met with great success in 1891. "Flirts and Matrons," by Robert G. Morris the well known play- wright ; "Orange Blossoms." and "A Letter from Home," were written by Townsend. These three monologues are copy- righted and belong to Miss Potter. Several of Miss Potter's poems have been published in the Texas Siftings. She belongs to the Methodist Church.
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the student. She discussed Aristotle, and delights in the study of biology. She talks to men in the same tone that she uses in ordering her maid. And the reformer of the nineteenth century disappears.
But how quickly the change. Before our startled eyes stood the same young lady, a vision in white tulle and rosebuds. The gauntlet of reformation is thrown over, and she lets her eyes and sweet smiles bring to her feet suitors and admirers by the score. At last her heart is captured, and we are rather tired of the silly chatter between two young hearts, and rejoice when they decide to wander away into the refreshment room to cool their fevered throats with lemon ices.
It seemed but a moment when she returned to us a bride, radiantly beautiful, clothed in spotless white, her soul as pure as the pearly whiteness of her face, bidding good-by to girlish follies, and fervently praying that God would watch over her and protect the future which would make her wife and woman. The veil is lowered; the organ plays. She is gone.
Again and again we saw her as the tender and loving wife-as the mother watching over a precious flock of little ones. Their bright eyes and curling locks we could almost see as she busied herself among them, now scolding, now petting them, and at last, clustered around her knee in evening prayer, the grandest and most exquisite scene of all, motherhood, passed from our gaze.
To be followed in our imagination, fifty years later, by the appearance of an old lady, her face beaming with the soft, though deep-seated lines, from a life well spent in rearing and caring for her loved ones. The husband and father is dead. It is her birthday. She waits alone her children and grandchildren. Her thoughts go back to the earlier days. The Bible, her sweetest comfort now, is resting upon her knee. One by one the children come, but alas! the face of the husband and the cheery voice of a favorite boy are gone forever. But there she stands, crowned queen of many hearts. Her arms embrace grown men and women who seem'as children yet. Vanished hours return, and grandmother is to that little group the most precious and lovely figure of them all.
The curtain is lowered; the strains of "Home, Sweet Home," swell from out the shaded screen, and we knew the end had come.
I was about to congratulate the young woman who had portrayed the wonderful tour de force, when I awoke. But the dream haunted me, and at last became a practical materialization. With no idea that I could impersonate the ideal of my dream, yet I saw where I could at least give promise of a novel and refreshing entertainment. Repeating the dream to Mr. Robert. Griffin Morris, a man blessed with the unique faculty of creative genius, he grasped the idea, and in a few weeks I held in my pos- session the manuscript of "Flirts and Matrons," a departure somewhat from the ideal, but ---
" I wonder if ever a song was sung, That the singer's heart sang sweeter; And I wonder if ever a rhyme was rung, But the thought surpassed the metre."
The insight that the study gave me to dramatic art I never before discovered in recitation. There are ten millions of people (it is estimated) who do not patronize the theater, and probably thrice as many who admire the dramatization of such authors whose books would not make a play. Placed in vivid impersonation with the power of a Coquelin, the grand and beautiful thoughts and words of George Eliot in the mouth of " Adam Bede" would be a dramatic monologue greater than many pre- sumptuous plays with a long list of players and parts. Ibsen's plays seem classic and profound when a refined impersonator portrays and suggests the wearied characters in "The Pillars of Society," or " Ghosts."
It is there one gets the deeper meaning of the author's words, which are too often sacrificed when placed in the hands of players who, for effect, dwell upon situations
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and scenic display. With a monologue effectively presented, there would necessarily be less of plot, fewer striking situations, and none of the complicated incidents that give excitement to a play; but there would also be something that would attract even more strongly than any one character in a play-the ability to infuse in many char- acters "life" without artifice, and making the one impersonation a physiological study and mental accomplishment.
There is a serious difficulty in overcoming monotony in even the brightest writ- ten monologue. Therefore, it must not abound in long drawn-out declamatory speeches. Everything must tend to natural effect. Change of expression and attitude is necessary, and above all a natural tone of voice. I don't believe that a person with a high-pitched voice could play successfully the brightest written monologue extant. The emotion and control of the voice, the vivacity and carnestness of the player, are the requisites of success.
I once attended an informal reception in New York, and as most " informals " arc very formal and stiff-jointed, the hostess thought of a plan to introduce dancing. How to clear the drawing-room was the question. "I have it," she said. " There is Miss -; I shall ask her to recite." And while that naturally pretty girl twisted her face in agonizing wrinkles, begging "the sexton not to ring the bell," one by one the rooms were cleared. At the conclusion she was left alone, save for a few patient listeners, and as I listened to the congratulations of the hostess, "Thank you, my dear, you have such talent; why don't you go on the stage?" my imagination carried me to the bedside of that fair unemotional girl, and in fancy I could hear her plan her future as a great actress, while the hostess slept soundly that night, content that her dance at least was a success.
Dramatic schools and colleges also have a great share in burdening the platform and stage with " failures." Their methods may be ever so perfect, their knowledge ever so complete; but they lack the moral courage to refuse the applicant who can offer the necessary fee for tuition, although absolutely deficient in natural ability, and thereby, many a useful mechanic is spoiled, and any number of clerks, housekeepers and people who would be successful in any business line are " possessed forever," until hope dies, and they often realize when too late that a mistake has been made. But no one would think of presenting a bill of damages against the schools that first fostered and held their youthful ambition.
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