Julia Ward Howe - Richards Laura E. - Страница 111
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At which, methought, the rafters shook.
* * * * * *
"Now, who art thou that didst not smile
When I my maddest jest devised?
Who art thou, stark and grim the while
That men my time and measure prized?"
Without her pilgrim staff she rose,
Her weeds of darkness cast aside;
More dazzling than Olympian snows
The beauty that those weeds did hide.
Most like a solemn symphony
That lifts the heart from lowly things,
The voice with which she spake to me
Did loose contrition at its springs.
"Oh, Duty! Visitor Divine,
Take all the wealth my house affords,
But make thy holy methods mine;
Speak to me thy surpassing words!
"Neglected once and undiscerned,
I pour my homage at thy feet.
Till I thy sacred law have learned
Nor joy, nor life can be complete."
J. W. H.
In the closing decade of the nineteenth century a new growth of "causes" claimed her time and sympathy. The year 1891 saw the birth of the Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom; modelled on a similar society which, with "Free Russia" as its organ, was doing good work in England.
The object of the American society was "to aid by all moral and legal means the Russian patriots in their efforts to obtain for their country political freedom and self-government." Its circular was signed by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Julia Ward Howe, John Greenleaf Whittier, James Russell Lowell, George Kennan, William Lloyd Garrison, Henry I. Bowditch, F. W. Bird, Alice Freeman Palmer, Charles G. Ames, Edward L. Pierce, Frank B. Sanborn, Annie Fields, E. Benjamin Andrews, Lillie B. Chace Wyman, Samuel L. Clemens, and Joseph H. Twitchell.
James Russell Lowell, writing to Francis J. Garrison in 1891, says: "Between mote and beam, I think this time Russia has the latter in her eye, though God knows we have motes enough in ours. So you may take my name even if it be in vain, as I think it will be."
It was through this society that she made the acquaintance of Mme. Breschkovskaya,[118] the Russian patriot whose sufferings and sacrifices have endeared her to all lovers of freedom. The two women felt instant sympathy with each other. Mme. Breschkovskaya came to 241 Beacon Street more than once, and they had much talk together. On one of these occasions our mother was asked to play some of her own compositions. Her fingers strayed from one thing to another; finally, on a sudden impulse, she struck the opening chords of the Russian National Hymn. Mme. Breschkovskaya started forward. "Ah, madame!" she cried, "do not play that! You cannot know what that air means to us Russians!"
At a great meeting in Faneuil Hall the two spoke, in English and Russian respectively, while other addresses were in Yiddish and Polish. All were frantically applauded by the polyglot audience which filled the hall to overflowing. William Dudley Foulke presided at this meeting. Speaking with our mother several years later, he reminded her of the occasion, which he thought might have been of a somewhat anarchistic tendency. He was not sure, he said, that they had not made fools of themselves. "One can afford," she replied, "to make a very great fool of one's self in such a cause as that of Russian liberty!"
The year 1891 saw the birth of another society in which she was deeply interested, the Women's Rest Tour Association, whose object was "simply to make it easier for women who need a trip abroad to take one."
It was proved "that the sum of $250 was sufficient to enable a woman of simple tastes to enjoy a summer's vacation in Europe"; a travelling fund was established from which women could borrow, or—in certain cases—receive gifts; a handbook was issued, etc., etc.
In an unobtrusive way, the Women's Rest Tour Association did and continues to do much good. She was its president to the close of her life, and in silent and lovely tribute to her memory the office has since then remained vacant.
In the early nineties all Christendom was aroused by the outrages committed by the Turks in Armenia. From almost every Christian country rose a cry of horror: indignation meetings were called; protest, denunciation, and appeal were the order of the day. In Boston a meeting was held at Faneuil Hall (November 26, 1894), called together by the Boston Armenian Relief Committee. She was on the platform, and spoke from her heart.
"I could not," she says, "stay away from this meeting. My heart was here, and I came, not so much to speak, as to hear what is to be done about this dreadful trouble. For something must be done. I have to pray God night and morning that He would find some way to stay this terrible tide of slaughter....
"I recall the first action of Florence Nightingale when she went to take care of the sick and wounded in the Crimean War. She found many things wanting for the comfort of the soldiers in the hospitals, but she could not get at them. Some seal or mandate was waited for. 'The men are suffering,' Florence Nightingale said. 'Break in the doors—open the boxes—give me the blankets and medicines. I must have them!'—and so she did. Now, the fleets of the Western nations are waiting for some diplomatic development which shall open the way for action. I think that we, the United States of America, are now called upon to play the part of Florence Nightingale; to take our stand and insist upon it that the slaughter shall cease. Oh! let us give money, let us give life, but let us stand by our principles of civil and religious liberty. I am sure that if we do so, we shall have behind us, and with us, that great spirit which has been in the world for nineteen centuries past, with ever-increasing power. Let us set up in these distant lands the shelter of the blessed Cross, and of all that it stands for, and let us make it availing once and forever."
Soon after this the Friends of Armenia organized as a society, she being its president. Among its members were William Lloyd Garrison, Henry Blackwell and his devoted daughter Alice, and M. H. Gulesian. Singly or in company they went about, through Massachusetts, holding meetings, rousing the people to aid in the protest of Christendom against heathendom, of mercy against cruelty. "Spoke for Armenia," is a frequent entry in the Journal of these days.
In one of these addresses she said:—
"It may be asked, where is the good of our assembling here? what can a handful of us effect against this wicked and remorseless power, so far beyond our reach, so entrenched in the selfishness of European nations who are the creditors of the bankrupt state, and who keep her alive in the hope of recovering the debt which she owes them? The walls of this old hall should answer this question. They saw the dawn of our own larger liberties. They heard the first indignant plea of Wendell Phillips when, in the splendor of his youth, he took the field for the emancipation of a despised race which had no friends. So, on this sacred arena, I throw down the glove which challenges the Turkish Government to its dread account. What have we for us in this contest? The spirit of civilization, the sense of Christendom, the heart of humanity. All of these plead for justice, all cry out against barbarous warfare of which the victims are helpless men, tender women and children. We invoke here the higher powers of humanity against the rude instincts in which the brute element survives and rules.
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