Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
History
Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910
Richards, Laura Elizabeth Howe
Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography; Feminists -- United States -- Biography; Howe, Julia Ward, 1819-1910
The Journal carries us swiftly onward. In place of the long meditations
on philosophy and metaphysics, we have brief notes of comings and
goings, of speaking and preaching, writing and reading. She works hard
to finish her paper on "Women in the Three Professions, Law, Medicine,
and Theology," for the "Chautauquan." "Very tired afterwards."
She speaks at the Newport Opera House with Mrs. Livermore (who said she
did not know Mrs. Howe could speak so well); she takes part in the
Authors' Reading for the Longfellow Memorial in the Boston Museum,
reciting "Our Orders" and the "Battle Hymn," with her lines to
Longfellow recently composed.
"I wore my velvet gown, my mother's lace, Uncle Sam's _Saint Esprit_,
and did my best, as did all the others."
The next day she speaks at a suffrage meeting in Providence, and makes
this comment:--
"Woman suffrage represents individual right, integral humanity, ideal
justice. I spoke of the attitude and action of Minerva in the
'Eumenides';[102] her resistance to the Furies, who I said personified
popular passion fortified by ancient tradition; her firm stand for a
just trial, and her casting the decisive ballot. I hoped that this would
prefigure a great life-drama in which this gracious prophecy would be
realized."
[102] Cf. Æschylus.
In a "good talk with Miss Eddy,"[103] she devises a correspondence and
circular to obtain information concerning art clubs throughout the
country. "I am to draft the circular."
[103] Miss Sarah J. Eddy, then of Providence, a granddaughter of Francis
Jackson.
She makes an address at the Unitarian Club in Providence.
"The keynote to this was given me yesterday, by the sight of the people
who thronged the popular churches, attracted, in a great measure no
doubt, by the Easter decoration and music. I thought: 'What a pity that
everybody cannot hear Phillips Brooks.' I also thought: 'They can all
hear the lesson of heavenly truth in the great Church of All Souls and
of All Saints; _there_ is room enough and to spare.'"
She writes a poem for the Blind Kindergarten at Jamaica Plain.
"I worked at my poem until the last moment and even changed it from the
manuscript as I recited it. The occasion was most interesting. Sam Eliot
presided, and made a fine opening address, in which he spoke
beautifully of dear Julia and her service to the blind; also of her
father. I was joined by Drs. Peabody and Bartol, Brooke Herford and
Phillips Brooks. They all spoke delightfully and were delightful to be
with. I recited my poem as well as I could. I think it was well liked,
and I was glad of the work I bestowed on it."
She preaches at Parker Fraternity[104] on "The Ignorant Classes."
[104] Boston.
Small wonder that at the Club Tea she finds herself "not over-bright."
Still, she had a "flash or two. The state of Karma [calmer], orchestral
conversation, and solo speaking."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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