swept over us all when Joan of Arc fell at Waterloo. Who does not sorrow
for the loss of Sappho, the sweet singer of Israel? Who among us does
not miss the gentle ministrations, the softening influences, the humble
piety of Lucretia Borgia? Who can join in the heartless libel that says
woman is extravagant in dress when he can look back and call to mind our
simple and lowly mother Eve arrayed in her modification of the Highland
costume? Sir, women have been soldiers, women have been painters, women
have been poets. As long as language lives the name of Cleopatra will
live. And not because she conquered George III.–but because she wrote
those divine lines:
Let dogs delight to bark and bite,
For God hath made them so.”
The story of the world is adorned with the names of illustrious ones of
our own sex–some of, them sons of St. Andrew, too–Scott, Bruce, Burns,
the warrior Wallace, Ben Nevis–the gifted Ben Lomond, and the great new
Scotchman, Ben Disraeli. –[Mr. Benjamin Disraeli, at that time Prime
Minister of England, had just been elected Lord Rector of Glasgow
University, and had made a speech which gave rise to a world of
discussion]– Out of the great plains of history tower whole mountain
ranges of sublime women: the Queen of Sheba, Josephine, Semiramis, Sairey
Gamp; the list is endless–but I will not call the mighty roll, the names
rise up in your own memories at the mere suggestion, luminous with the
glory of deeds that cannot die, hallowed by the loving worship of the
good and the true of all epochs and all climes. Suffice it for our pride
and our honor that we in our day have added to it such names as those of
Grace Darling and Florence Nightingale. Woman is all that she should be
gentle, patient, longsuffering, trustful, unselfish, full of generous
impulses. It is her blessed mission to comfort the sorrowing, plead for
the erring, encourage the faint of purpose, succor the distressed, uplift
the fallen, befriend the friendless–in a word, afford the healing of her
sympathies and a home in her heart for all the bruised and persecuted
children that knock at its hospitable door. And when I say, God bless
her, there is none among us who has known the ennobling affection of a
wife, or the steadfast devotion of a mother but in his heart will say,
Amen!
WOMAN’S PRESS CLUB
On October 27, 1900, the New York Woman’s Press Club gave a tea
in Carnegie Hall. Mr. Clemens was the guest of honor.
If I were asked an opinion I would call this an ungrammatical nation.
There is no such thing as perfect grammar, and I don’t always speak good
grammar myself. But I have been foregathering for the past few days with
professors of American universities, and I’ve heard them all say things
like this: “He don’t like to do it.” [There was a stir.] Oh, you’ll hear
that to-night if you listen, or, “He would have liked to have done it.”
You’ll catch some educated Americans saying that. When these men take
pen in hand they write with as good grammar as any. But the moment they
throw the pen aside they throw grammatical morals aside with it.
To illustrate the desirability and possibility of concentration, I must
tell you a story of my little six-year-old daughter. The governess had
been teaching her about the reindeer, and, as the custom was, she related
it to the family. She reduced the history of that reindeer to two or
three sentences when the governess could not have put it into a page.
She said: “The reindeer is a very swift animal. A reindeer once drew a
sled four hundred miles in two hours.” She appended the comment: “This
was regarded as extraordinary.” And concluded: “When that reindeer was
done drawing that sled four hundred miles in two hours it died.”
As a final instance of the force of limitations in the development of
concentration, I must mention that beautiful creature, Helen Keller, whom
I have known for these many years. I am filled with the wonder of her
knowledge, acquired because shut out from all distraction. If I could