Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett

“ Women have special cause for gratitude to her, because she has shown, as no other woman could, how absurd is the statement that political duties unsex a woman, and make her lose womanly tenderness and sympathy. The passionate worship which she bestowed upon her husband, the deep love she constantly shows for her children and grandchildren, and the eager sympathy which she extends to every creature on whom the load of suffering or sorrow has fallen, prove that being the first political officer of the greatest empire in the world cannot harden her heart or dull her sympathy. ”

“ There could not possibly be a greater contrast than that between Caroline’s life in Hanover and her life in England. From being a maid-of-all-work in a not very interesting family, where there was a dull monotony in her daily routine of drudgery, she found she was to become a public singer, an astronomer’s apprentice, and an assistant manufacturer of scientific instruments; she was not only her brother’s housekeeper, but his helper and coadjutor in every act of his life. Nothing is more remarkable than the account of the life of William and Caroline Herschel at Bath. ”

“ This lady was deeply interested in all efforts to raise up and improve the lot of women, and especially devoted herself to opening the means of higher education to them. She was one of those who hoped all things and believed all things, and, consequently, she rebelled against the impious notion that if a woman were not married there was no use or place for her in the world. It was her clear strong faith in women’s work and in women’s worth, that helped more than anything else to give dignity, purpose, and happiness to Bessie Gilbert’s life. ”

“ At noon on that day, when it was too late, Emily whispered in gasps, “If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now.” A few days later Charlotte wrote, “We are very calm at present. Why should we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over; the spectacle of the pains of death is gone by; the funeral day is past. We feel she is at peace. No need to tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel them.” The terrible anguish of those last days haunted the surviving sisters like a vision of doom. ”

“ A hundred years ago England was particularly rich in great brothers and sisters. There were William and Caroline Herschel, Charles and Mary Lamb, and, perhaps, chief of all, William and Dorothy Wordsworth. These last were certainly the greatest as tested by the position of the brother in the world of literature. He won and maintained a place among the greatest of English poets; but the very greatness of the brother was the cause why the sister is known only as a tributary to his genius. It is not that his achievements dwarf hers by comparison; she made no conscious contribution to literature ”

“ SISTER DORA One of the most remarkable women who, in recent times, have devoted themselves to nursing and to the service of the sick poor, was Dorothy Wyndlaw Pattison, more generally known by the name of Sister Dora. She was a lady born and bred, well-educated, high-spirited, sweet-tempered, and handsome; full of fun and sense of humour, fond of hunting and other athletic exercises, and remarkably fond of her own way. ”

“ Delightful walks in the evenings, seeing far off in the west the coast of England like a cloud, crested with Dover Castle, the evening star, and the glory of the sky. The reflections in the water were more beautiful than the sky itself; purple waves brighter than precious stones for ever melting away on the sands.” Whoever will compare this with the two sonnets beginning “Earth has not anything to show more fair,” and “Fair star of evening, splendour of the West,” will see how far it is just to say that Dorothy has given us in prose what Wordsworth has given us in verse. ”

“ PRUDENCE CRANDALL AND LUCRETIA MOTT Everybody is an Abolitionist now. There is not, probably, in any part of Europe or the United States a single human being who would now defend slavery as an institution, or who thinks that for man to own property in his fellow-man, to be able to buy and sell him and dispose of his whole life, is not a sin and an outrage against all feelings of humanity. ”

“ Still, fully allowing all this, it is beyond doubt that her subjects, and especially her women subjects, have deep cause for gratitude and affection to the Queen. She has set a high example of duty and faithfulness to the whole nation. The childish resolve, “I will be good,” has never been lost sight of. With almost boundless opportunities for self-indulgence, and living in an atmosphere where she is necessarily almost entirely removed from the wholesome criticism of equals and friends, she has clung tenaciously to the ideal with which she started on her more than fifty years of sovereignty. ”

“ As a young child, Mary led a wild, outdoor life, with hardly any education, in the ordinary sense of the word, though there is no doubt that in collecting shells, fossils, and seaweeds, in watching and studying the habits and appearance of wild birds, and in gazing at the stars through her little bedroom window, the whole life of this wonderful child was really an education of the great powers of her mind. ”

“ Slavery was put an end to in the British Dominions nearly seventy years ago, but it is only twenty-six years since it was abolished in the United States of America. The time is well within the memory of many persons now living when to be an Abolitionist, even in the New England States, was to be hated and reviled, to render one’s self the object of the bitterest persecution, to risk comfort, happiness, and even life. ”

“ It has always been held—at least, in Christian countries—that the most womanly of women’s duties are to be found in works of mercy to those who are desolate and miserable. To be thirsty, hungry, naked, sick, or in prison, is to have a claim for compassion and comfort upon womanly pity and tenderness. And we shall see, if we look back over recent years, that never have these womanly tasks been more zealously fulfilled than they have been in the century which has produced Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, Josephine Butler, and Octavia Hill. ”

“ Wordsworth and his wife tended her with unceasing devotion. One who knew them well wrote of Wordsworth at this time that “There is always something very touching in his way of speaking of his sister. The tones of his voice become very gentle and solemn, and he ceases to have that flow of expression which is so remarkable in him on all other subjects.” The same friend wrote, “Those who know what they (William and Dorothy Wordsworth) were to each other can well understand what it must have been to him to see that soul of life and light obscured.” ”

“ She might well feel, as old age approached, that she had “warmed both hands at the fire of life.” No life could have been fuller than hers of every sort of interest and activity. She said in a letter to a friend, written after a dangerous illness: “When I felt it was more than probable that I should not recover, with a pulse above 120, and at the entrance of my seventy-sixth year, I was not alarmed. I felt ready to rise tranquil from the banquet of life, where I had been a happy guest. I confidently relied on the goodness of my Creator” (Study of Maria Edgeworth, by Grace A. Oliver, p. 521) . ”

“ In 1802 the poet married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, and nothing is more characteristic of Dorothy’s sweet and generous nature than the warm, loving welcome which she gave to her brother’s wife. She did not know jealousy in love; her love was so perfect that she rejoiced in every addition to her brother’s happiness, and did not, as a meaner woman might have done, wish his heart to be vacant of all affection save what he felt for herself. ”

“ One of these was entire seclusion from all society but his own. She replied that she “would not admit the unqualified control of a husband over all her actions: she did not feel that seclusion from society was indispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to secure domestic happiness. And she declined leaving her mode of life for any ‘dark and untried system.’” Mr. Day was deeply wounded, but it was his vanity that suffered rather than his heart; for in three weeks he made a similar overture to Honora’s sister, Elizabeth. ”

“ They seem to have delighted in all she did, and to have helped her by every means in their power. She was a great favourite with her brothers and sister, and with all the tribe of nephews and nieces that grew up about her. She had no trace of any assumption of superiority, and gave herself no airs of any kind. She had too much humour and sense of fun for there to be any danger of this in her case. She was thoroughly womanly in her habits, manners, and occupations. Like Miss Martineau, her early training preserved her from being a literary lady who could not sew. ”

“ We should say, at the present day, that there is certainly force of mind in Joanna Baillie’s dramas, but that it is feminine, not masculine in character, and that the spirit of purity which breathes through them is essentially the womanly spirit. She had particular power and skill in the delineation of female characters, especially those of an unusual degree of elevation and purity. This in itself would have sufficiently betrayed the sex of the writer now when people have had far wider opportunities of judging of the differences between men and women as authors. ”

“ At Barley Wood Hannah experienced the great and unavoidable calamity of old age, the gradual loss, by death, of the friends and allies of her youth. Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, and Garrick were dead long ago, and the brilliant society in London, of which Hannah had formed part, had lost many of its stars. One by one, death laid its hand on the members of the More sisterhood, till Hannah and Patty, the lifelong friends and companions, were the only two left. ”

“ When a brother and sister are linked together by an unusually strong bond of affection and admiration, it is generally the sister who, by inclination and natural selection, sacrifices all individual and personal objects for the sake of the brother. For instance, she frequently remains unmarried in order to be able to devote herself to his pursuits and further his interests. There is no more devotedly unselfish love than that of a sister and brother when it is at its best. The love of a wife for a husband, or a parent for a child, has something in it more of the element of self. ”

“ No young man attempts responsible work as a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, or even a gardener or mechanic, without spending long years in fitting himself for his work; but in old times women seemed to think they could do all their work, in governessing, nursing, or what not, by the light of nature, and without any special teaching and preparation whatever. There is still some temptation on the part of women to fall into this fatal error. A young woman, not long ago, who had studied medicine in India only two years, was placed at the head of a dispensary and hospital for native women. ”

“ At the outset of life, to be deprived of a faculty on which almost all free and pleasant social intercourse depends must be a bitter trial. One striking characteristic of Harriet Martineau’s mind was brought into relief by it. Throughout her life a misfortune never overtook her without calling out the strength necessary to bear it, not only with patience, but with cheerfulness. As soon as it was clear that her deafness was a trial that would last as long as her life, she made a resolution with regard to it. ”

“ The Queen is not the third, but the first of her name, and although there are no doubt many causes for anxiety as regards the outlook in our political and social history, yet there are still greater causes for hopefulness and for confidence that the marvellous improvement in the social, moral, and material condition of the people which has marked the reign in the past will be continued in the future.
It is not very easy at this distance of time to picture to one’s self the passion of loyalty and devotion inspired by the young girl who became Queen of England in 1837. ”

“ There is a deeper human passion in Wordsworth’s verse than Dorothy ever reached in her prose. He would not stand to-day the third in the noble group where Shakespeare and Milton are first and second, if he had not possessed, over and above his subtle sympathy with Nature, sympathy also with the greatest of Nature’s works, “man, the heart of man, and human life.” ”

“ The anecdote shows an unusually keen sense of duty and of conscientiousness in so young a child, and there are other anecdotes which show the same characteristic. Who, therefore, can wonder at the unbounded joy which filled all hearts in England when this young girl, pure, sweet, innocent, conscientious, and unselfish, ascended the throne of George IV. and William IV.? Her manners were frank, natural, simple, and dignified. The bright young presence of the girl Queen filled every one, high and low, throughout the nation with enthusiasm. ”

“ Those who have known what it is, even in the midst of every home comfort, to stand by the death-bed of those they love, can best imagine what it was to Lady Sale and her daughter to see the anguish and death of their son and husband under such circumstances as these. ”

“ The horror of the whole scene can be with difficulty pictured. Yet Charles, who had only lately been released from an asylum, had the power to cope with it, to maintain his calmness and courage, and above all to resolve that the terrible calamity which had overtaken them should not be allowed to enshroud the whole of his dear sister’s life in the gloom of a madhouse. He wrote to his friend Coleridge five days after the tragedy, and his letter speaks nothing but tender fortitude. ”

“ There is a funny little bit in another letter to the effect that women should not be constantly admonishing men as to the right line of thought and conduct. “I make it a point of conscience never to interfere or cross my brother in the humour he happens to be in. It always appears to me a vexatious kind of tyranny, that women have no business to exercise over men, which merely because, they having a better judgment, they have power to do. Let men alone, and at last we find they come round to the right way which we, by a kind of intuition, perceive at once. ”

“ Fry’s first step towards reforming the women took the form of starting a school for the children in the prison. As usual in all good work of a novel kind, those who knew nothing about it were quite sure that Mrs. Fry would have been much more usefully employed if she had turned her energies in a different direction. People who have never stirred a finger to lighten the misery of mankind always know, so much better than the workers, what to do and how to do it. ”