"That Soft, White Hand."

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the gravel walk and burst out crying. That was my first "heart affair," and I have had fifty since as surely as I had that one. I have had the subtle sense of an affinity for persons of all ages and conditions, for man and woman, youth and maiden, boy and girl. The solar system has for a season seemed to revolve around each one of these beloved objects and for each of them I have endured all stages of the divine disease that was meant, as I believe, to acclimate us to heaven. They pass me now in bright array, my choice procession of immortals; how can I "express unblamed" so much of sweetness and of nobility as they in turn. enshrined for me? After Maria Hill the hiatus was long. Nature became my one dear love and for many a youthful year I knew no other, needed none.

Then came the vision of my cousin Mary G., several years my senior, self-poised and gracious, little dreaming of the commotion that her presence stirred in the wayward heart of her Western cousin then in her fifteenth year, who coming back to the old home at the East, met for the first time since infancy a troop of relatives unknown before except by name. My boy cousins I liked, my other girl cousins I loved, but for my cousin Mary I felt nothing less than worship. She had such royal dignity and she knew books and she was good-so I said to myself a thousand times over, but she thought not of my devotion and I was far too shy to tell her. That soft, white hand on mine seemed to complete the circuit that brought me into harmony with the electric tides of God's great universe; life was full to the brim and its rich draught I drank with solemn joy. But in two weeks we came away and the star I would have followed faded to a spent meteor within a year. Next came the sweet-faced blind girl, Carrie, with her gift of music, sending my blithe spirit up to heaven's gate, but soon she went away; then Anna C., the superintendent's daughter, but she liked my sister Mary best and my budding hopes were swiftly nipped, then my blind music teacher, a young married man of beautiful nature, who was wont to make his way alone down to our house, which was a mile from his, and I was wont to watch for him at the gate and go to meet him up the road. But so did sister Mary. and never in the world by voice or sign had he reason to believe that the elder sister's greeting had more back of it than the child-like good cheer of the younger's. Carefully as I ha

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A Young Girl's Self-Respect.

been reared, I had no special sense of sin in dreaming of this young man's loveliness. I knew that he would never be the wiser nor would the woman he loved be grieved; she was my friend and I was hidden utterly from both of them in my eye-and-ear-proof armor woven of mingled cheerfulness and pride. Erelong he, too, went away, and the next enshrined ideal of my life was Marion, "whose soul was like a star and dwelt apart," the high-bred girl with whom in 1857 I contested the palm for scholarship in Milwaukee Female College; then Susie B., the rich merchant's daughter in that same city, who was a very Saint Cecilia to my ardent fancy; and then Maggie H., of early Evanston fame, the "wild girl" of the school, whom I followed to the extent of being a "law unto myself" as to the rules, but from whom I recoiled with absolute rage when without any hint to me she arranged for us to take a surreptitious moonlight horseback ride with Hart, a certain gay Lothario of the University, and his friend Will. Ignorantly I entered into her plot enough to walk out in the College grounds while all the teachers were at prayer-meeting-a thing we had no right to do. But when, in the most shadowed part, two young men rose before us, I dropped her arm and fled back to the college building like a startled fawn. For this affront I refrained from speaking to my inamorata for three weeks, but finally made up our difficulty when she admitted that I was right in saying that no "self-respecting girl would ever make a clandestine appointment of any kind with a young man." It was my mother's fear lest this young woman, who was most attractive, would get a stronger hold on me, that led her, after I told the whole story on going back to Forest Home, to determine that she would give my father no rest until he left the farm and came to Evanston to live. Here I met Mary B., for whom my attachment was so great that when she very properly preferred my brother, although I had devotedly desired their union, the loss of her was nothing less than a bereavement, a piteous sorrow for a year and more, as my journals testify, one of the keenest of my life, to which the death of my only sister Mary put a sudden, and as I have always thought, a well-nigh miraculous end, while our sisterly affection has remained intact. Other attachments followed, so much less restful than friendships, that I can not fairly call them by that consoling name. Their objects were good

My Benefactor and His Daughter.

641

women all, thank God! and the only trouble was not that we loved unwisely, but too well. They are all written in the records of those days. One of them, dating from 1864, led to my trip abroad with all its riches of observation, study, and acquaintance. A more loyal heart never beat than that of Kate A. Jackson, who, though a rich man's daughter, went with me to Lima as a teacher when I was (in 1867) preceptress of Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, and afterward took the French professor's place in Northwestern University, leaving there when I did, in 1874. father was founder of the New Jersey Locomotive Works, at Paterson, a sturdy-natured, generous-hearted man, who freely adopted his daughter's suggestion that she and I make a long tour together, for "We determined to go abroad,

To go abroad, strange countries for to see."

We stayed over two years, since which time Kate has spent six years more in foreign lands, but has come home at last, living, with her accomplished sister, Mrs. Dr. Whitely, and that lady's two charming young people, next door to us. There are several other good and gifted women whom I might name as having belonged to my inner circle of affection at some time in my life; but in Anna A. Gordon, a lovely Boston girl, whom I met when conducting revival meetings with Mr. Moody, in 1877, I found the rarest of my intimate friends. For twelve years she has been at once a solace and support in all my undertakings. I call her "Little Heart's-ease," for, as she knows, I have struggled through the depths and come out on their Beulah side; have voyaged through roaring storms to emerge at last in the region of perpetual calm; and as I am so much her senior she seems quite sure to be my loved and last.

The loves of women for each other grow more numerous each day, and I have pondered much why these things were. That so little should be said about them surprises me, for they are everywhere. Perhaps the "Maids of Llangollen," (in Wales) afford the most conspicuous example; two women, young and fair, with money and position, who ran away together, refusing all offers to return, and spent their happy days in each other's calm companionship within the home they there proceeded to establish. Tourists visit the spot where they once dwelt, to praise their

642

The Loves of Women.

constancy and sigh for the peace that they enjoyed. In these days, when any capable and careful woman can honorably earn her own support, there is no village that has not its examples of "two heads in counsel," both of which are feminine. Oftentimes these joint-proprietors have been unfortunately married, and so have failed to "better their condition" until, thus clasping hands, they have taken each other "for better or for worse." These are the tokens of a transition age. Drink and tobacco are to-day the great separatists between women and men. Once they used these things together, but woman's evolution has carried her beyond them; man will climb to the same level some day, but meanwhile he thinks he must have his dinners from which woman is excluded and his club-house with whose delights she intermeddleth not. Indeed, the fact that he permits himself fleshly indulgences that he would deprecate in her, makes their planes different, giving him a sense of larger liberty and her an instinct. of revulsion. This has gone so far on man's part that a learned writer has a treatise to prove the existence of organic reasons why men were made to drink and smoke, but women not! This opinion sets up a standard that influences the minds of men who do not use these poisons, and thus extends the domain of the most harmful separating force that to-day alienates so many men and women. It is safe to claim that among the leading advocates of woman's advancement, and of an equal standard of chastity for both sexes, we do not find tobacco users or drinkers of beer and wine.

The friendships of women are beautiful and blessed; the loves of women ought not to be, and will not be, when the sacred purposes of the temperance, the labor, and the woman movements are wrought out into the customs of society and the laws of the land. For the highest earthly good that can come to any individual, or home, or state, or to humanity, is told in the poet Thomson's lines:

"Oh happy they, the happiest of our race,

Whom gentle stars unite and in one fate,

Their lives, their fortunes, and their beings blend."

With a belief so orthodox, why did I miss life's crowning joy? Surely a serene heart, now closed forever (on the planet Earth) to love's delirium or delight, may tell its secret for the

66

"The Most Occult of Dreams.”

643

help of those less way-wise? One of my early friends was wont to call me Opal," because that jewel has an edge of snow and heart of flame. When I told my dear mother, going home from my first term at Evanston, that I had written thus to Maggie : 'I love you more than life, better than God, more than I dread damnation!" that great philosopher exclaimed, "Oh, Frank! pray Heaven you may never love a man!"

But her prayer was not answered-for I have been so fortunate as to fancy, at least, that I loved a man,-nay, more

than one.

When I was but fourteen, a brilliant young scientist came on a brief visit to our family. Of course he never knew it, elegant fellow that he was, but for many a day I dreamed dreams and saw visions of which he was the central figure. No one supposed this, not my own mother, even; though I have always claimed that she knew my every thought-however, this was not a thought-only the most occult of dreams! We lived so much alone that I was almost nineteen before the slightest token of interest came to me from beyond the mystic line that a virtuous woman's glances may not cross. This epoch in my history took the form of a carefully written note, sent through the postoffice, inviting me to go to a student's entertainment, and the missive came soon after we removed to Evanston. It was passed around as a rare curiosity, and the wisdom of the family was combined in my discreet affirmative reply. I took the young man's arm with feelings akin to terror, for it was the first time in my life. At the evening's close I noticed that he and I were almost the only ones remaining. He said reluctantly, "I beg your pardon, but is it not time for me to take you home?" Alas! the wise ones of the family circle had not supposed it necessary to tell me I must give the signal to return, and I was morbidly afraid of seeming "forward"!

At this distance I understand the situation-I only felt it then. Of a forceful mind and an imperious will, it was not natural for me to fall into a passive attitude toward anybody. Having so long had great Nature for my teacher, and country freedom as my atmosphere, the sudden conventionalities of society set. heavily upon me. Without knowing it, I felt that her code did not deal with me justly. Her dictum was that no well-bred,