Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian: Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of AmericaYoung, Charles Sumner
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Clara Barton: A Centenary Tribute to the World's Greatest Humanitarian: Founder of the American Red Cross Society, Author of the American Amendment to the International Red Cross Convention of Geneva, Founder of the National First Aid Association of America
Young, Charles Sumner
Barton, Clara, 1821-1912
“How shall I manage to be a woman of business, and act like a lady of
leisure? How strangely odd it seemed to me when I read your pretty
description of how your time was passed, that you could dress for
breakfast, help do some little things about the house, get ready for tea
and walk after it. When _did_ I see such days, or even _one_ such day.
If it would not take too long I could tell you something of how I pass a
day. Let me try; and as one day is a fair sample of another, suppose I
take yesterday as I remember it better than any other. Well, let me
brush up my hair and try to think. First, I rose when I could see to
dress, I suppose a little past four, went into my bath room, and bathed
thoroughly in preparation for a scorching day and partly made my toilet;
then read my chapter in the scriptures by _myself_, and offered my own
prayer and thanksgiving (no family service to unite in like you, and I
have too much of the dust of old Plymouth Rock sticking to me to omit
it); then finished a hurried toilet, and sat down to a French lesson at
half past six; went to my breakfast at seven, commenced my French
recitation, lasted until eight; after this put my chamber and myself in
order and started for the office; called on my dress-maker on my way and
tried on a dress; called at the post office and found one business
letter; and reached the office at nine; distance little over a mile, and
then commenced the tug of war. I wrote until three o’clock P. M., took
an omnibus home, took my writing, or a portion of it, along with me
(don’t tell; it’s against the rule), reached home at three-thirty, took
a hurried bath, went to dinner and at four-thirty was seated at my table
writing for my life. Did not leave my room again, or scarce arose from
my table until twelve o’clock, when I retired and slept as fast and hard
as I could until daylight in preparation for a repetition of the same.
Perhaps you wish, or are curious, to know how much I accomplished in all
that time. Ten thousand words of bold round record which must live and
be legible when the mound which once covered me shall have become a
hollow and the moss-covered headstone, with ‘born’ and ‘died’ no longer
to be traced upon its time-worn front shall have buried itself beneath
the kindred turf.”
Working twenty hours out of the twenty-four would give almost any woman
the reputation of being a _genius_. Thinking the woman who had done
things held the secret of woman’s success, a touring party of ambitious
young ladies called on Clara Barton, in her later years, at Glen Echo.
The following conversation took place:
Vassar Girl—Miss Barton, these other ladies and myself called to pay our
respects. We have heard much of you since we were little girls. A few
weeks ago, in the class of ——, we graduated from Vassar College. We, as
you have done, wish to do some good in the world. We cannot decide what
we should do; we want your advice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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