Sarah Knowles Bolton

“ Educate the women, and the men will be educated. Let the ladies understand the great doctrine of seeking the greatest good, of loving their neighbors as themselves; let them indoctrinate their children in this fundamental truth, and we shall have wise legislators."
"You won't do so again, will you, dear?" was almost always sure to win a tender response from a pupil.
She would never allow a scholar to be laughed at. If a teacher spoke jestingly of a scholar's capacity, Miss Lyon would say, "Yes, I know she has a small mind, but we must do the best we can for her." ”

“ Lewes was delighted, and said, "Her fame is beginning." George Eliot was growing happier, for her nature had been somewhat despondent. She used to say, "Expecting disappointments is the only form of hope with which I am familiar." She said, "I feel a deep satisfaction in having done a bit of faithful work that will perhaps remain, like a primrose-root in the hedgerow, and gladden and chasten human hearts in years to come." "'Conscience goes to the hammering in of nails' is my gospel," she would say. "Writing is part of my religion, and I can write no word that is not prompted from within. ”

“ Of course the name of Elizabeth Fry became known everywhere. Queen Victoria gave her audience, and when she appeared in public, everybody was eager to look at her. The newspapers spoke of her in the highest praise. Yet with a beautiful spirit she writes in her journal, "I am ready to say in the fulness of my heart, surely 'it is the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes'; so many are the providential openings of various kinds. Oh! if good should result, may the praise and glory of the whole be entirely given where it is due by us, and by all, in deep humiliation and prostration of spirit." ”

“ In no home have I seen so much that is beautiful gathered from all parts of the world. The hall, as you enter, square and hung with crimson velvet, is adorned with valuable paintings. Two easy-chairs before the fireplace are made from ostriches, their backs forming the seats. These birds were gifts to Lady Brassey in her travels. In the rooms beyond are treasures from Japan, the South Sea Islands, South America, indeed from everywhere; cases of pottery, works in marble, Dresden candelabra, ancient armor, furs, silks, all arrayed with exquisite taste. ”

“ There is a part of Cheyenne Mountain which I and one other have come to call 'our garden.' When we drive down from 'our garden,' there is seldom room for another flower in our carriage. The top thrown back is filled, the space in front of the driver is filled, and our laps and baskets are filled with the more delicate blossoms. We look as if we were on our way to the ceremonies of Decoration Day. So we are. All June days are decoration days in Colorado Springs, but it is the sacred joy of life that we decorate,--not the sacred sadness of death. ”

“ We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to the task of the biographer, that when some great or good person dies, instead of the dreary three-or-five volume compilation of letter and diary and detail, little to the purpose, which two-thirds of the public have not the chance, nor the other third the inclination, to read, we could have a real 'life,' setting forth briefly and vividly the man's inward and outward struggles, aims, and achievements, so as to make clear the meaning which his experience has for his fellows. ”

“ Matters grew from bad to worse. William Howard Russell, the Times correspondent, wrote home to England: "It is now pouring rain,--the skies are black as ink,--the wind is howling over the staggering tents,--the trenches are turned into dykes,--in the tents the water is sometimes a foot deep,--our men have not either warm or waterproof clothing,--they are out for twelve hours at a time in the trenches,--they are plunged into the inevitable miseries of a winter campaign,--and not a soul seems to care for their comfort, or even for their lives. ”

“ She accepted the position, and for twenty years, till youth had been lost in middle life, Maria Mitchell worked for one hundred dollars a year, studying on, that she might do her noble work in the world.
Did not she who loved nature, long for the open air and the blue sky, and for some days of leisure which so many girls thoughtlessly waste? Yes, doubtless. However, the laws of life are as rigid as mathematics. A person cannot idle away the hours and come to prominence. No great singer, no great artist, no great scientist, comes to honor without continuous labor. ”

“ It is a French chateau, two stories high, drab, with green blinds, surrounding an open square; vines clamber over the gate and the high walls, and lovely flowers blossom everywhere. As you enter, you stand in a long hall, with green curtains, with many busts, the finest of which is that of Monsieur Necker. The next room is the large library, with furniture of blue and white; and the next, hung with old Gobelin tapestry, is the room where Madame Recamier used to sit with Madame de Staël, and look out upon the exquisite scenery, restful even in their troubled lives. ”

“ They sprang up suddenly and tunefully as skylarks from the daisy-spangled, hawthorn-bordered meadows of old England, with a blitheness long unknown, and in their idyllic underflights moved with the tenderest currents of human life. Miss Ingelow may be termed an idyllic lyrist, her lyrical pieces having always much idyllic beauty. High Tide, Winstanley, Songs of Seven, and the Long White Seam are lyrical treasures, and the author especially may be said to evince that sincerity which is poetry's most enduring warrant."
Winstanley is especially full of pathos and action. ”

“ The passengers sprung from their berths. "We must die!" said Sumner to Mrs. Hasty. "Let us die calmly, then!" was the response of the widow of the captain.
At first, as the billows swept over the vessel, Angelino, wet and afraid, began to cry; but his mother held him closely in her arms and sang him to sleep. Noble courage on a sinking ship! The Italian girl who had come with them was in terror; but after Ossoli prayed with her, she became calm. For hours they waited anxiously for help from the shore. ”

“ You don't know what good a lady's visit to the army does. These men whom you have seen to-day will talk of your visit for six months to come. Around the fires, in the rifle-pits, in the dark night, or on the march, they will repeat your words, describe your looks, voice, size, and dress; and all agree in one respect,--that you look like an angel, and exactly like each man's wife or mother. ”

“ Goethe was one of her chosen friends. He said of her: "She has a most remarkable and, for a woman, really an unheard-of talent. No living painter excels her in dignity, or in the delicate taste with which she handles the pencil."
Miss Ellen C. Clayton, in her interesting volumes, English Female Artists, says, "No lady artist, from the days of Angelica Kauffman, ever created such a vivid interest as Elizabeth Thompson Butler. None had ever stepped into the front rank in so short a time, or had in England ever attained high celebrity at so early an age." ”

“ Here is the marble face and figure I have come especially to see, that of lovely Florence Nightingale. It is a face full of sweetness and refinement, having withal an earnest look, as though life were well worth living.
What better work than to direct these girls how to be useful? Some are here from the highest social circles. The "probationers," or nurse pupils, must remain three years before they can become Protestant "sisters." Each ward is in charge of a sister; now it is Leopold, because the ward bears that name; and now Victoria in respect to the Queen, who opened the institution. ”

“ Broken in spirit, she returned to Geneva. Amid all this darkness a new light was about to beam upon her life. In the social gatherings made for her, she observed a young army officer, Monsieur Rocca, broken in health from his many wounds, but handsome and noble in face, and, as she learned, of irreproachable life. Though only twenty-three and she forty-five, the young officer was fascinated by her conversation, and refreshed in spirits by her presence. ”

“ Mary Ann was an affectionate, sensitive child, fond of out-door sports, imitating everything she saw her brother do, and early in life feeling in her heart that she was to be "somebody." When but four years old, she would seat herself at the piano and play, though she did not know one note from another, that the servant might see that she was a distinguished person! ”

“ They think of childhood as immeasurably beneath and behind them. I have never been able to join in such a notion. It often seems to me that we lose quite as much as we gain by our lengthened sojourn here. I should not at all wonder if the thoughts of our childhood, when we look back on it after the rending of this vail of our humanity, should prove less unlike what we were intended to derive from the teaching of life, nature, and revelation, than the thoughts of our more sophisticated days. ”

“ This sympathy unlocked every heart to her. She was made the confidante of thousands. All classes loved her. Now it was a serving girl who told Margaret her troubles and her cares; now it was a distinguished man of letters. She was always an inspiration. Men never talked idle, commonplace talk with her; she could appreciate the best of their minds and hearts, and they gave it. She was fond of social life, and no party seemed complete without her.
At twenty-two she began to study German, and in three months was reading with ease Goethe's Faust, Tasso and Iphigenia, Körner, Richter, and Schiller. ”

“ All honor to a woman who, with a happy home, was willing to leave it to make other homes happy; who, having suffered, tried with a sympathetic heart to forget herself and keep others from suffering; who, being famous, gladly took time to help unknown authors to win fame; who, having means, preferred a life of labor to a life of ease. ”

“ So much was the Government impressed by her earnestness and good judgment, that she was appointed a Special Commissioner with her friend, Abbott Kinney, to examine and report on the condition of the Mission Indians in California.
Could an accomplished, tenderly reared woman go into their adobe villages and listen to their wrongs? What would the world say of its poet? Mrs. Jackson did not ask; she had a mission to perform, and the more culture, the more responsibility. She brought cheer and hope to the red men and their wives, and they called her "the Queen." ”

“ She won Harriet's confidence, not by the ten thousand times repeated "don't," which so many children hear in home and school, till life seems a prison-pen. She let her run wild, guiding her all the time with so much tact, that the girl scarcely knew she was guided at all. Blessed tact! How many thousands of young people are ruined for lack of it! ”

“ Necker, unpopular with the bad advisers of the King, was again asked to leave Paris, and make no noise about it; but the people, hearing of it, soon demanded his recall, and he was hastily brought back from Brussels, riding through the streets like "the sovereign of a nation," said his daughter. The people were wild with delight.
But matters had gone too far to prevent a bloody Revolution. Soon a mob was marching toward Versailles; thousands of men, women, and even children armed with pikes. ”

“ She is a 'ministering angel,' without any exaggeration, in these hospitals, and as her slender form glides quietly along each corridor, every poor fellow's face softens with gratitude at the sight of her. When all the medical officers have retired for the night, and silence and darkness have settled down upon these miles of prostrate sick, she may be observed, alone, with a little lamp in her hand, making her solitary rounds. ”

“ If we cannot, like Rosa Bonheur, paint a "Horse Fair," and receive ten thousand dollars, we can, like Mrs. Stowe and Miss Alcott, do some kind of work to lighten the burdens of parents. If poor, with Mary Lyon's persistency and noble purpose, we can accomplish almost anything. If rich, like Baroness Burdett-Coutts, we can bless the world in thousands of ways, and are untrue to God and ourselves if we fail to do it.
Margaret Fuller said, All might be superior beings, and doubtless this is true, if all were willing to cultivate the mind and beautify the character.
S.K.B.
Harriet Beecher Stowe. ”

“ Since the day when men and women together breasted the storms of New England in the Mayflower, and together planted a new civilization, together they have worked side by side in all great matters. They were untiring in the Revolutionary War; they worked faithfully in the dark days of anti-slavery agitation, taking their very lives in their hands. ”

“ When a woman of beauty, great wealth, and the highest social position, devotes her life to the lifting of the lowly and the criminal, and preaches the Gospel from the north of Scotland to the south of France, it is not strange that the world admires, and that books are written in praise of her. Unselfishness makes a rare and radiant life, and this was the crowning beauty of the life of Elizabeth Fry.
Born in Norwich, England, May 21, 1780, Elizabeth was the third daughter of Mr. John Gurney, a wealthy London merchant. ”

“ James Mott was now prospering in the cotton business, so that they could spare time to go in their carriage and speak at the Quaker meetings in the surrounding country. Lucretia would be so absorbed in thought as not to notice the beauties of the landscape, which her husband always greatly enjoyed. Pointing out a fine view to her, she replied, "Yes, it is beautiful, now that thou points it out, but I should not have noticed it. I have always taken more interest in human nature." From a child she was deeply interested for the slave. ”