Mrs. John A. Logan

“ Beekman's letters written during the war breathed the most ardent spirit of patriotism. The wrongs she was compelled to suffer in person, and the aggregation of wrongs she witnessed on every side aroused her just indignation. Her feelings were expressed in her many and frequent prayers for the success of the American armies. Although surrounded by peril and disaster she would not consent to leave her home; her zeal for the honor of her family and her country inspired her with the courage that never faltered and caused her to disregard the wrong she so continually had to bear. ”

“ In a few days they returned to the White House and no mistress of that staid old mansion ever presided with more grace, dignity and genuine hospitality than did Mrs. Grover Cleveland. Tall and graceful with dark brown hair, worn loosely back from the forehead, the most distinguishing features of her face were her beautiful violet eyes and exquisitely mobile mouth, which imparted to the face a very sweet expression. As beauty ever paves a way for its possessor, Mrs. Cleveland was admired from the first as a woman of rare attractions. ”

“ But, interwoven with the history of this nation joyously set out on the commercial conquest of the world, is the life of America's splendid womanhood—not always as the foreign eulogist would extol her for her physical superiority—but the American womanhood working in peace and quietness whether through the fierce energy of the pioneer mother or, later in our history, supplementing now by the subtlety of nature and now by gift of grace, man's material or martial labor for the country's welfare. ”

“ When I reflect on the advantages which people in America possess over the most polished of other nations, the ease with which property is obtained, the plenty which is so equally distributed, their personal liberty and security of life and property, I feel grateful to Heaven, who marked out my lot in that happy land; at the same time I deprecate that restless spirit and that baleful ambition and thirst for power which will finally make us as wretched as our neighbors. ”

“ And there is the other all-round woman, big as the world, with all sorts of excrescences and deficiencies, mountains and valleys of character, with rivers of thought and seas of sympathy, and forests of varied feeling crowned with abundant leaves for the healing of the nations, and with plains of experience and deserts of sorrow, and inside a burning heart of love that penetrates all, and now and then shows itself in some volcanic outburst that reveals the real passion and fervor of its inward life. ”

“ Given a face like hers, brave, benignant, patient, yet resolute, a will inflexible for duty, a heart sensitive to righteousness and truth, yet tender as a child's, given New England puritanism and rigor, its habits of looking deep into every problem, its consciousness full of God, its lofty ideal of freedom and its final espousal of every noble cause, and you and I shall never blame the stalwart heart, well-nigh crushed because mother is gone. ”

“ Eliza Garfield, the mother of James A. Garfield, was an admirable illustration of the true nobility of the women of the earlier days of the Republic. Her devotion to the memory of her husband, her struggle for the maintenance and education of her family, her pure Christian character, native generosity and sympathy with those about her, her self-denial, her humility, her pride in her illustrious son, make her a remarkable woman of her time. She is the only mother of a President who ever resided in the White House. ”

“ Trained in the rough school of pioneer struggles which required physical strength, brute force, daring courage, and contempt for weakness, one can readily understand that they were unmindful of the finer feelings and tenderness which are the natural fruits of civilization, and that the men accepted the help of the women as their legitimate rights.
When at last an era of success dawned, it was natural that the men as the leaders of the adventurous settlers of the New World should have all the glory and that the prodigious labors and sacrifices of the women should be overlooked. ”

“ The Sandwich Islander will ask why his white teacher's eyes dim as she reads her American letters. The swarthy African will lament with his sorrowing guide, who cries, 'Help, Lord, for the Godly 'ceaseth!' The cinnamon groves of Ceylon, and the palm trees of India overshadow her early deceased missionary pupils, while those left to bear the heat and burden of the day will wail the saint whose prayers and letters they so prized. ”

“ She was a remarkable woman in many senses—her frame was that of iron, her nerves as steady as a sharpshooter's, her intellect as quick as an electric spark, her knowledge of human nature phenomenal, her executive ability wonderful, her endurance limitless. ”

“ This colored hospital service was one of those extraordinary tasks out of the ordinary course of hospital discipline that none but a woman could execute. It required more than a man's power of endurance, for men fainted and fell under the burden. It required a woman's discernment, a woman's tenderness, a woman's delicacy and tact; it required such nerve and such executive power as are rarely united in any woman's character. But Miss Gilson brought all this and more, a woman's sympathy, to her task. ”

“ Down in Monmouth Mountain the people never dreamed that there would be any fighting in their midst. The murmur of the sea on one side and the murmur of the pine forest on the other made a melody of sound that shut out the roar of warfare, so that the tramp, tramp, tramp of the British army that suddenly aroused them must have been a very great surprise. Sir Henry Clinton had succeeded to the command of the British army, with orders to New York and a line of march through the Jerseys. ”

“ Pryor was a Southern heiress, born to every imaginable luxury, and never a life looked more hedged in with happiness than hers, yet, when the war wrecked and stranded the fortunes of the family, no bourgeois housewife ever performed heavier duties to a large family, ever sewed more diligently on her children's little garments, than this brave and brilliant woman in that dark period after the war when so many great fortunes were swept away. ”

“ With a genius, a consecration, a beauty and a youth which had outlived her years, a soul eager still to know, to learn, to catch every word God had for her, she lived on, a center of joy and comfort in this most typical and almost best known home in America. She stood a veritable Matterhorn of strength to this daughter. ”

“ The few women shared nobly in the indescribable hardships and suffering experienced by the indomitable spirits who made the first settlements on the shores of New England. Neither history nor tradition has accorded to these women the meed of praise so justly their due. It is left to one's imagination to picture their patience, forbearance, fortitude, quick perception, dauntless courage and intelligence in discharging the duties that fell upon these women as wives, mothers, nurses and companions of men imbued with the idea of their superiority and whose selfishness was prodigious. ”

“ It is no light responsibility to have become, as we have undertaken to make ourselves, the ambassadors in this twentieth century, of the ruling spirits of the colonies of the last half of the eighteenth century—the time that tried men out and called them to cement with their blood a union of new-born states, setting up for the whole modern world, so startling a conception of political freedom, religious tolerance and social justice. ”

“ Livermore resumed the even tenor of her life, took up again philanthropic and literary work, which she had temporarily relinquished. She afterwards left Chicago and returned to pass long years in her home in Melrose, Massachusetts, happy in the society of her husband, children and grandchildren, until her death in 1905. She was ever ready with advice, pen and influence to lend a helping hand to the weak and struggling; to strike a blow for the right against the wrong; to prophesy a better future in the distance, and to insist on a woman's right to help it along. ”

“ Elizabeth Lyle Saxon, of New Orleans, has literally spent her lifetime carrying out a promise made to her father on his deathbed, "Never to cease working for unfortunate women so long as her life should last." For years she has been in demand as a lecturer on universal suffrage, temperance, social purity and kindred subjects. Her keen, logical and yet impassioned style of oratory fairly takes her audiences by storm, and has won for her a national reputation as a public speaker. Her great work, however, has always been for the most degraded and downtrodden of her sex. ”

“ A wise counsellor, of clear judgment and indefatigable energy, remarkable administrative ability, tact, high literary attainments, loyal to duty, and a gracious and charming personality — these are the characteristics which make Mrs Cornelia Branch Stone one of the most admired and influential women of the South. She has been and is an active worker in every organization which stands for the good of the people and the uplift of mankind. ”

“ Logan's noble life was when she, in these hard war times, brought into play all her acuteness and economic skill to respond to the continual demands upon her for the relief of the families who found it impossible to live on the pay of their soldier husbands who had volunteered in defense of their country. With heart and soul, Mary Logan, the woman who had graced Washington society, and who had also known the excitement of war at the front, became a cultivator of the land, raising wheat, corn and cotton on their small farm in South Illinois. ”

“ Many women possessed of her sensibility and shrinking nature would have been overwhelmed, but the severe trials only served to develop the admirable energy of her character. She never laid aside the habiliments of sorrow; the anniversary of her husband's murder was kept as a day of fasting and prayer; and to the great object of her life—the support and education of her children, she devoted herself with a firmness and constancy which wrested success despite the most adverse conditions. ”

“ We may judge how great a lady Betsy Schuyler had become when we read that at the Inaugural Ball the President distinguished Mrs. Hamilton, and one other woman, by dancing with them. She and her husband were included constantly in Washington's dinner and theatre parties.
The Hamiltons were not rich. "I have seen," writes Talleyrand, "one of the marvels of the world. I have seen the man who made the fortune of a Nation laboring all night to support his family." Hamilton, however, was not merely the most brilliant statesman of his day, and his wife was not only a charming society woman. ”

“ Watch his eyes grow misty as he thinks of these women who relieved the tedium of the days of suffering and the nights of raving, when fever held him in a relentless clutch. These whispered words of encouragement and hope for the spirit, while also giving attention to the needs of the body. ”

“ Hancock was one of those who, by her courtesies to the officers and ladies of the British army when Burgoyne was under the convention of surrender, made Cambridge a brilliant center of hospitality and fashion. She was the daughter of Edmund Quincy, of Massachusetts, and was born in 1750. At the age of twenty-four she married John Hancock, one of the great men of the age, and, aided by the lustre of his fortunes, she became a leader in society, filling her station with rare dignity and grace. ”

“ Nothing in the power of the nation to give or to say can ever compare for a moment with the proud satisfaction which every brave soldier who has ever risked his life for his country ever after carries in his heart of hearts ”

“ In the enlightenment of the twentieth century, one recognizes that the women were the martyrs of that long and perilous voyage. It was the women who kept the weary vigils through sunshine and storm; it was the wives and mothers who were the nurses and comforters of their families; they cooked and cleaned and helped to keep the Mayflower habitable. There were, doubtless, times when weaker women would have been a burden to the men, who had hourly difficulties to overcome, which taxed their courage and strength almost to the point of exhaustion. ”