24 chapters
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24 chapters
SOME EMINENT WOMEN OF OUR TIMES
SOME EMINENT WOMEN OF OUR TIMES
“‘I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me.’ “‘What is that?’ said Will.... “‘That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don’t quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil—widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.’”— Middlemarch , Book iv....
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PREFACE
PREFACE
The following short sketches of the lives of some of the eminent women of our times were written for The Mothers’ Companion , and are now republished by the kind permission of the proprietors and publishers, Messrs. Partridge. They were suggested by the fact that nearly all the best contributions of women to literature have been made during the last hundred years, and simultaneously with this remarkable development of literary activity among women, there has been an equally remarkable activity i
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I ELIZABETH FRY
I ELIZABETH FRY
“Humanity is erroneously considered among the commonplace virtues. If it deserved such a place there would be less urgent need than, alas! there is for its daily exercise among us. In its pale shape of kindly sentiment and bland pity it is common enough, and is always the portion of the cultivated. But humanity armed, aggressive, and alert, never slumbering and never wearying, moving like an ancient hero over the land to slay monsters, is the rarest of virtues.”— John Morley. The present century
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II MARY CARPENTER
II MARY CARPENTER
“That it may please Thee ... to show Thy pity upon all prisoners and captives.” Mary Carpenter was thirty-eight years old when Mrs. Fry died in 1845. We do not hear, in reading the lives of either, that the two women ever met, or that the elder directly stimulated the activity of the younger. Yet the one most surely prepared the way for the other; their work was upon the same lines, and Miss Carpenter, the Unitarian, of Bristol, was the spiritual heir and successor of Mrs. Fry, the Quaker, of No
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III CAROLINE HERSCHEL
III CAROLINE HERSCHEL
Every one knows the fame of Sir William Herschel, the first distinguished astronomer of that name, the builder and designer of the forty-foot telescope, and the discoverer of the planet, called after George III., Georgium Sidus. Hardly less well known is the name of his sister, Caroline Herschel, who was her brother’s constant helper for fifty years. She was the discoverer of eight comets; she received, for her distinguished services to science, the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society,
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IV SARAH MARTIN THE DRESSMAKER AND PRISON VISITOR OF YARMOUTH
IV SARAH MARTIN THE DRESSMAKER AND PRISON VISITOR OF YARMOUTH
“Two men I honour and no third. First the toilworn craftsman that with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the earth and makes her man’s.... A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily bread, but the bread of Life.... Unspeakably touching is it however when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man’s wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I
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V MARY SOMERVILLE
V MARY SOMERVILLE
Mary Somerville , the most remarkable scientific woman our country has produced, was born at Jedburgh in 1780. Her father was a naval officer, and in December 1780 had just parted from his wife to go on foreign service for some years. She had accompanied her husband to London, and on returning home to Scotland was obliged to stay at the Manse of Jedburgh, the home of her brother-in-law and sister, Dr. and Mrs. Somerville. Here little Mary was born, in the house of her uncle and aunt, who afterwa
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VI QUEEN VICTORIA[1]
VI QUEEN VICTORIA[1]
A Jubilee , or a fiftieth anniversary of the reign of a king or queen, is a very rare event in our history. Rather more than a thousand years have rolled away since the time when Egbert was the first king of all England. And in all these thousand years there have only been three jubilees before that now being celebrated, and these three have each been clouded by some national or personal misfortune casting a gloom over the rejoicings which would naturally have taken place on such an occasion. It
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VII HARRIET MARTINEAU
VII HARRIET MARTINEAU
Harriet Martineau is one of the most distinguished literary women this century has produced. She is among the few women who have succeeded in the craft of journalism, and one of the still smaller number who succeeded for a time in moulding and shaping the current politics of her day. There are many things in her career which make it a particularly instructive one. Her vivid remembrance of her own childhood gave her a very strong sympathy with the feelings and sufferings of children; all mothers,
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IX MARY LAMB
IX MARY LAMB
The name of Mary Lamb can never be mentioned without recalling that of her brother Charles, and the devoted, self-sacrificing love that existed between the two. It was one of Harriet Martineau’s sayings, that of all relations that between brother and sister was apt to be the least satisfactory. There have been some notable examples to the contrary, and perhaps the most notable is that given by Charles and Mary Lamb. When a brother and sister are linked together by an unusually strong bond of aff
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X AGNES ELIZABETH JONES
X AGNES ELIZABETH JONES
“Count not that man’s life short who has had time to do noble deeds.”—From Cicero . There is something very interesting in tracing, as we are sometimes able to do, the connection of one piece of good work with another. The energy, devotion, and success of one worker stimulates the enthusiasm of others; this enthusiasm does not always show itself in carrying on or developing what has been already begun, but sometimes manifests itself in the more difficult task of breaking new ground; and thus one
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XI CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË
XI CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË
In the quiet Yorkshire village of Haworth, on the bleak moorland hillside above Keighley, were born two of the greatest imaginative writers of the present century, Charlotte and Emily Brontë. The wonderful gifts of the Brontë family, the grief and tragedy that overshadowed their lives, and their early deaths, will always cast about their story a peculiarly touching interest. Their father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, was of Irish birth. He was born in the County Down, of a Protestant family—one that
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XII ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
XII ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Sydney Smith , writing in 1810 upon the extraordinary folly of closing to women all the ordinary means of literary education, remarked that one consequence of their exclusion was that no woman had contributed anything of lasting value to English, French, or Italian literature, and that scarcely a single woman had crept into the ranks even of the minor poets. While he was writing this, a little baby girl was beginning to prattle, who within a very short time was destined to win a place among the
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XIII LADY SALE AND HER FELLOW-HOSTAGES IN AFGHANISTAN
XIII LADY SALE AND HER FELLOW-HOSTAGES IN AFGHANISTAN
The first Napoleon is said to have remarked to Madame de Staël that women had nothing to do with politics; whereupon the lady rejoined that women ought at least to be sufficiently acquainted with political subjects to understand the reason why their heads were cut off. When we read the account of the great sufferings of the English ladies who were held as prisoners or hostages by Akbar Khan in Afghanistan in 1842, we are reminded of Madame de Staël’s epigram, and think that they ought at least t
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XIV ELIZABETH GILBERT
XIV ELIZABETH GILBERT
Elizabeth Gilbert , daughter of the Bishop of Chichester, was one of the blind who help the blind. It is true, physically, that the blind cannot lead the blind; but, perhaps, none are so well fitted as the blind, who are gifted with courage, sympathy, and hope, to show the way to careers of happy and active usefulness to those who are suffering from a similar calamity with themselves. The Bishop’s little daughter, born at Oxford in 1826, was not blind from her birth. She is described in the firs
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XV JANE AUSTEN
XV JANE AUSTEN
There is very little story to tell in the life of Jane Austen. She was one of the greatest writers of English fiction; but her own life, like the life she describes with such extraordinary and minute accuracy in her tales, had no startling incidents, no catastrophes. The solid ground never shook beneath her feet; neither she, nor the relations and neighbours with whom her tranquil life was passed, were ever swept away by the whirlwind of wild passions, nor overwhelmed by tragic destiny. The ordi
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XVI MARIA EDGEWORTH
XVI MARIA EDGEWORTH
It will be impossible, in the short limits of these pages, to give anything like a full account of the long life of Maria Edgeworth. She lived for nearly eighty-three years, from 1st January 1767 to 22d May 1849; and through her own and her father’s friends she was brought into touch with nearly all the leading men and women connected with the stirring political and literary events of that period. What this implies will be best realised if we consider that her lifetime comprised the whole period
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XVII QUEEN LOUISA OF PRUSSIA.
XVII QUEEN LOUISA OF PRUSSIA.
It is very difficult for us now to go back in imagination to the time, between eighty and ninety years ago, when the whole of Europe was in danger of being crushed under the tyranny and rapacious cruelty of Napoleon Buonaparte. This miraculous man, with his insatiable ambition, his almost more than human power and less than human unscrupulousness, had raised himself from a comparatively humble station, not only to be Emperor of France, but to be the conqueror of Italy, Spain, Sweden, and Germany
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XVIII DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
XVIII DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
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 no
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XIX SISTER DORA
XIX 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. As her own way was generally a good way, she was probably right in preferring it to the w
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XX MRS. BARBAULD
XX MRS. BARBAULD
Anne Letitia Barbauld will probably be more remembered for what she was than for what she did. At a time when women’s education was at a very low ebb, and when for a woman to be an authoress was to single herself out for ungenerous sneers, attacks, and insinuations, Mrs. Barbauld did much to raise the social esteem in which literary women were held, and prove in her own person that a popular authoress could be a devoted wife, daughter, and sister. Mrs. Barbauld’s father was the Rev. John Aikin,
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XXI JOANNA BAILLIE
XXI JOANNA BAILLIE
Mrs. Joanna Baillie , as she was usually called, because, though she was never married, her age and literary reputation were held to entitle her to brevet rank, was a remarkable instance of a writer rapidly rising to the highest pinnacle of fame, and then as rapidly and surely descending almost to the common level of ordinary mortals. But the Scotch woman, with the blood of heroes in her veins, showed herself worthy of her descent, both by the modesty and dignity with which she bore her fame, an
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XXII HANNAH MORE
XXII HANNAH MORE
Miss Charlotte M. Yonge’s charming little biography of Hannah More brings strikingly before us the picture of the authoress of Cœlebs in Search of a Wife , and also depicts in a way that will not easily be forgotten, some of the more striking contrasts between the present day and the England of eighty or ninety years ago. There are some who are always inclined to say “the old is better”; but they must be very curiously constituted who can look back on the social condition of our country at the e
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XXIII THE AMERICAN ABOLITIONISTS PRUDENCE CRANDALL AND LUCRETIA MOTT
XXIII THE AMERICAN ABOLITIONISTS 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. 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 Unite
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