University of Virginia Library

35. CHAPTER XXXV.
IN WHICH WE ATTEND ANOTHER MEETING IN FAVOR OF
“WOMEN'S RIGHTS.”

Early in April, Mr. Isaiah Bemis again made his appearance
in Ptolemy. He had adopted Reform as his profession, and
in the course of fifteen years' practice had become a Jack-of-all-trades
in philanthropy and morals. He was ready, at the
shortest notice, to give an address on Total Abstinence, Vegetarianism
(or “Vegetality,” as he termed it, with a desire to
be original), Slavery, Women's Rights, or Non-Resistance, according
to the particular need of the community he visited.

He also preached, occasionally, before those independent
religious bodies which spring up now and then in a spasmodic
protest against church organization, and which are the natural
complement of the Perfectionists in Government and Society,
who believe that the race is better off without either. In
regard to Spiritualism he was still undecided: it was not yet
ingrafted upon the trunk of the other Reforms as an accepted
branch of the same mighty tree, and a premature adherence
to it might loosen his hold on those boughs from which he
sucked sustenance, fame, and authority.

By slender contributions from the Executive Committees of
the various Societies, and the free hospitality of the proselytes
of one or the other, all through the country, Mr. Bemis was
in the possession of a tolerable income, which came to him
through the simple gratification of his natural tendencies. To
harangue the public was a necessity rather than a fatigue.
He was well stored with superficial logic wherewith to overwhelm
ordinary disputants, while with his hosts, from whom
no opposition was to be expected, he assumed an air of arrogant

superiority. This was principally their own fault. A
man who hears himself habitually called an Apostle and a
Martyr, very soon learns to put on his robes of saintship.
None of his subjects was bold enough to dispute the intellectual
and moral autocracy which he assumed. Thus, for fifteen
years, a Moral Gypsy, he had led a roving life through the
country, from Maine to Indiana, interrupted only by a trip to
England, in 1841, as a “delegate at large” to the “World's
Anti-Slavery Convention.” During all this time his wife had
supported herself by keeping a boarding-house in a small town
in New Jersey. He was accustomed to visit her once a year,
and at such times scrupulously paid his board during the few
weeks of his stay—which circumstance was exploited as an
illustration of his strict sense of justice and his constancy to
the doctrine of Women's Rights.

Central New York was a favorite field for Mr. Bemis, and
he ranged its productive surface annually. His meetings being
announced in advance in the Annihilator, his friends were
accustomed to have all the arrangements made on his arrival.
On reaching Ptolemy, however, two or three days still intervened
before the meeting could be held, on account of Tumblety
Hall having been previously engaged by the “Mozart
Ethiopian Opera,” and the “Apalachicolan Singers.” Mr.
Bemis, as a matter of course, claimed the hospitality of the
Merryfields in the interval. He was not received with the
expected empressement, nor were his Orphic utterances listened
to with the reverence to which he was used. The other
friends of the cause—foremost among them Seth Wattles—
nevertheless paid their court as soon as his arrival became
known, and (spiritually) on bended knees kissed the hand of
the master.

The arrangements for the coming meeting were first to be
discussed. Attention had been drawn away from the reform
during the previous summer by the renewed agitation in favor
of Temperance, and it was desirable to renovate the faded
impression. The Rev. Amelia Parkes had been invited,

but was unable to leave her congregation; and Bessie Stryker
was more profitably engaged in lecturing before various
literary associations, at one hundred dollars a night (payable
only in gold). Mr. Chubbuck, of Miranda, could be depended
upon, but he was only a star of the second magnitude, and
something more was absolutely required.

“We must get Miss Thurston—I mean Mrs. Woodbury—
again. There is nothing else to be done,” remarked Mr.
Bemis, drawing down his brows. He had not forgotten that
the people of Ptolemy had freely given to her the applause
which they had withheld from his more vigorous oratory.

“I rather doubt, as it were,” said Mr. Merryfield, “whether
Hannah will be willing to speak.”

“Why not?” thundered Bemis.

“She's lived very quietly since her marriage, and I
shouldn't wonder if she'd changed her notions somewhat.”

“I shouldn't wonder,” said Seth, drawing up his thick
nostrils, “if her husband had forbidden her ever to speak
again. If he could bully her into marrying him, he could do
that, too.”

“You're mistaken, Seth,” exclaimed Mr. Merryfield, coloring
with a mild indignation, “there's nothing of the bully
about Woodbury. And if they two don't love each other
sincerely, why, Sarah and me don't!”

“We can easily find out all about it,” said Mr. Bemis,
rising and buttoning his coat over his broad chest. “Mr.
Wattles, will you come with me? We will constitute ourselves
a Committee of Invitation.”

Seth, nothing loath, put on his hat, and the two started on
their errand. It was but a short walk to Lakeside, which
they reached soon after Woodbury had taken his customary
place in the library, with a cigar in his mouth and a volume
of Pepys' Diary in his hand. Hannah sat near him, quiet and
happy: she was not only reconciled to her husband's habit,
but enjoyed the book and talk which accompanied it more
than any other part of the day. On this occasion they were

interrupted by Bute, who announced the visitors in the following
style:

“Miss' Woodbury, here's Seth Wattles and another man
has come to see you.”

Hannah rose with a look of disappointment, and turned
towards her husband, hesitatingly.

“Shall I go, also?” he asked.

“I would prefer it, Maxwell; I have no private business
with any one.”

Bute had ushered the visitors into the tea-room. The door
to the library was closed, but a faint Cuban perfume was perceptible.
Seth turned towards Mr. Bemis with elevated eye-brows,
and gave a loud sniff, as much as to say: “Do you
notice that?” The latter gentleman scowled and shook his
head, but said nothing.

Presently the door opened and Hannah made her appearance,
followed by her husband. She concealed whatever embarrassment
she may have felt at the sight of Mr. Bemis, frankly
gave him her hand, and introduced him to her husband.

“Be seated, gentlemen,” said the latter, courteously. “I
would ask you into the library, but I have been smoking there,
and the room may not be agreeable to you.”

“Hem! we are not—exactly—accustomed to such an atmosphere,”
said Mr. Bemis, taking a chair.

Woodbury began talking upon general topics, to allow his
guests time to recover from a slight awkwardness which was
evident in their manner. It was not long, however, before
Mr. Bemis broached the purpose of his visit. “Mrs. Woodbury,”
said he, “you have heard that we are to have a meeting
on Wednesday evening?”

“Yes.”

“We have been disappointed in getting the Rev. Amelia
Parkes, and the advocacy of The Cause is incomplete unless a
woman takes part in it. I have therefore come to ask your
assistance. We wish, this time, to create an impression.”

It was not a welcome message. She knew that such a test

must come, some time; but of late she had been unable to
apply her mind steadily to any subject, and had postponed,
by an agreement with herself, the consideration of all disturbing
questions. She looked at her husband, but his calm face
expressed no counsel. He was determined that she should
act independently, and he would allow no word or glance to
influence her decision.

“It is long since I have spoken,” she said at last; “I am
not sure that I should be of service.” She wished to gain
time by an undecided answer, still hoping that Woodbury
would come to her assistance.

“We are the best judges of that,” said Mr. Bemis, with
something of his old dictatorial tone. “I trust you will not
fail us, now when we have such need. The interest in The
Cause has very much fallen off, in this neighborhood, and if
you desert us, to whom shall we look for help?”

“Yes, Hannah,” chimed in Seth, “you know we have
always looked upon you as one of the Pillars of Progress.”

It grated rather harshly upon Woodbury's feelings to hear
his wife addressed so familiarly by the ambitious tailor; but
she was accustomed to it, from the practice of her sect to
bear testimony against what they call “compliments.”

“I have not lost my interest in the cause,” Hannah answered,
after another vain attempt to read Woodbury's face; “but I
have freely uttered my thoughts on the subject, and I could
say nothing that has not been already heard.”

“Nothing else is wanted,” said Mr. Bemis, eagerly. “The
Truth only gains by repetition; it still remains eternally new.
How many thousand times have the same Bible texts been
preached from, and yet their meaning is not exhausted—it is
not even fully comprehended. How much of the speaker's
discourse do you suppose the hearers carry home with them?
Not a tenth part—and even that tenth part must be repeated
ten times before it penetrates beneath the surface of their
natures. Truth is a nail that you cannot drive into ordinary
comprehensions with one blow of the hammer: you must pile

stroke upon stroke, before it enters far enough to be clinched
fast. It is not the time for you to draw back now, in a season
of faint-heartedness and discouragement. If you fail, it will
be said that your views have changed with the change in
your life, and you will thus neutralize all your labors heretofore.”

“That cannot be said of me!” exclaimed Hannah, thoroughly
aroused and indignant. “My husband has been too
just—too generous, differing with me as he does—to impose
any restrictions upon my action!” She turned towards him.
He answered her glance with a frank, kindly smile, which
thanked her for her words, but said no more. “Well, then!”
she continued; “I will come, if only to save him from an
unjust suspicion. I will not promise to say much. You over-estimate
my value as an advocate of the reform.”

“It is not for me,” said Mr. Bemis, with affected humility,
“to speak of what I have done; but I consider myself competent
to judge of the services of others. Your influence will
be vastly increased when your consistency to The Cause shall
be known and appreciated. I now have great hopes that we
shall inaugurate an earnest moral awakening.”

Little more was said upon the subject, and in a short time
the two reformers took their leave. After Woodbury had
returned from the door, whither he had politely accompanied
them, he said, in his usual cheerful tone: “Well, Hannah,
shall we return to Old Pepys?”

Her momentary excitement had already died away. She
appeared perplexed and restless, but she mechanically rose and
followed him into the library. As he took up the book, she
interrupted him: “Tell me, Maxwell, have I done right?”

“You should know, Hannah,” he answered. “I wish you
to act entirely as your own nature shall prompt, without
reference to me. I saw that you had not much desire to
accept the invitation, but, having accepted it, I suppose you
must fulfil your promise.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said; but her tone was weary and

disappointed. How gladly would she have yielded to his
slightest wish, if he would only speak it! What a sweet
comfort it would have been to her heart, to know that she
had sacrificed something belonging to herself, even were it
that higher duty which had almost become a portion of her
conscience, for his sake! The independence which he, with
an over-considerate love, had assured to her, seemed to isolate
her nature when it should draw nearer to his. His perfect
justice crushed her with a cold, unyielding weight of—not
obligation, for that cannot coexist with love—but something
almost as oppressive. She had secured her freedom from
man's dictation—that freedom which once had seemed so rare
and so beautiful—and now her heart cried aloud for one word
of authority. It would be so easy to yield, so blissful to
be able to say: “Maxwell, I do this willingly, for your
sake!”—but he cruelly hid the very shadow of his wish from
her sight and denied her the sacrifice! He forced her independence
back upon her when she would have laid it down,
trusting all she was and all she might be to the proved nobility
of his nature! Self-abnegation, she now felt, is the heart of
love; but the rising flood of her being was stayed by the
barriers which she had herself raised.

All the next day her uneasiness increased. It was not only
her instinctive fear of thwarting her husband's hidden desire
which tormented her, but a singular dread of again making
her appearance before the public. She was not conscious of
any change in her views on the question of Woman, but they
failed to give her strength and courage. A terrible sinking
of the heart assailed her as often as she tried to collect her
thoughts and arrange the expected discourse in her mind.
Every thing seemed to shift and slide before the phantasm of
her inexplicable fear. Woodbury could not help noticing her
agitation, but he understood neither its origin nor its nature.
He was tender as ever, and strove to soothe her without adverting
to the coming task. It was the only unhappy day she
had known since she had come to Lakeside.

The next morning dawned—the morning of Wednesday—
and noon came swiftly as a flash, since she dreaded its approach.
The dinner had been ordered earlier than usual, for
the meeting was to commence at two o'clock; and as soon as
it was over, Woodbury said to her: “It is time you were
ready, Hannah. I will take you to Ptolemy, of course, and
will attend the meeting, or not, as you desire.”

She drew him into the library. “Oh, Maxwell!” she cried;
“will you not tell me what you wish me to do?”

“My dear wife,” he said, “do not torment yourself on
my account. I have tried to fulfil to the utmost my promise
to you: have I said or done any thing to make you suspect
my sincerity?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing! You have kept it only too well.
But, Maxwell, my heart fails me: I cannot go! the very
thought of standing where I once stood makes me grow faint.
I have no courage to do it again.”

“Then do not,” he answered; “I will make a suitable
apology for your failure. Or, if that is not enough, shall I
take your place? I will not promise,” he added, smiling,
“to go quite so far as you might have done, but I will at least
say a few earnest words which can do no harm. Who has so
good a right to be your substitute as your husband?”

“Maxwell,” she sobbed, “how you put me to shame!” It
was all she could say. He took her in his arms, kissed her
tenderly, and then drove into Ptolemy.

Tumblety Hall was crowded. The few advocates of the
cause had taken good care to spread the news that Mrs.
Woodbury was to be one of the speakers, and there was a
general, though indefinite curiosity to hear her again, now that
she was married. Mr. Bemis rubbed his hands as he saw how
rapidly the benches were filling, and observed to Seth Wattles:
“The iron is hot, and we have only to strike hard.” After
the audience had assembled, the latter was chosen Chairman of
the meeting, Mr. Merryfield declining, on account of his having
so frequently filled that office, “as it were.”

Seth called the meeting to order with a pompous, satisfied
air. His phrases were especially grandiloquent; for, like
many semi-intelligent persons, he supposed that the power of
oratory depended on the sound of the words. If the latter
were not always exactly in the right place, it made little difference.
“Be ye convinced, my brethren,” he concluded,
“that absoloot Right will conquer, in spite of the concatenations
and the hostile discrepancies of Urrur (Error)! Our
opponents have attempted to shut up every door, every vein
and artery, and every ramification of our reform, but the angel
of Progress bursts the prison-doors of Paul and Silas, and
when the morning dawns, the volcano is extinct!”

Mr. Bemis followed, in what he called his “sledge-hammer
style,” which really suggested a large hammer, so far as voice
and gesture were concerned, but the blows did not seem to
make much impression. He had, however, procured a few
new anecdotes, both of the wrongs and the capacities of woman,
and these prevented his harangue from being tedious to
the audience. They were stepping-stones, upon which the
latter could wade through the rushing and turbid flood of his
discourse.

It had been arranged that Hannah should follow him, and
Mr. Chubbuck, of Miranda, close the performance. When,
therefore, Mr. Bemis sat down, he looked around for his successor,
and the audience began to stir and buzz, in eager
expectation. She was not upon the platform, but Woodbury
was seen, pressing down the crowded side-aisle, apparently
endeavoring to make his way to the steps. He finally reached
them and mounted upon the platform, where a whispered
consultation took place between himself and Mr. Bemis. The
countenance of the latter gentleman grew dark, and he in turn
whispered to Seth, who, after some hesitation, arose and
addressed the meeting:

“We have again an illustration,” he said, “of the vanity of
human wishes. We expected to present to you the illustrious
prototype of her sex, to whose cerulean accents you have often

listened and applauded, but disappointment has chilled the
genial current of our souls. She has sent a subsidy in her
place, and he is prepared to await your pleasure, if you will
hear the spontaneous vindication.”

A movement of surprise ran through the audience, but
their disappointment at once gave place to a new curiosity,
and a noise of stamping arose, in token of satisfaction. Woodbury,
whose demeanor was perfectly serious and collected, in
spite of a strong tendency to laugh at Seth, stepped forward
to the front of the platform, and, as soon as silence returned,
began to speak. His manner was easy and natural, and his
voice unusually clear and distinct, though the correctness of
his pronunciation struck his hearers, at first, like affectation.

“I appear voluntarily before you, my friends,” he said, “as
a substitute for one whom you know. She had promised to
speak to you on a subject to which she has given much earnest
thought, not so much for her own sake as for that of her
sex. Being unable to fulfil that promise, I have offered to
take her place,—not as the representative of her views, or of
the views of any particular association of persons, but as a
man who reveres woman, and who owes her respect in all
cases, though he may not always agree with her assertion of
right. (`Good!' cried some one in the audience.) I stand
between both parties; between you who denounce the tyranny
of man (turning to Mr. Bemis), and you who meet with contempt
and abuse (turning back towards the audience) all earnest
appeals of woman for a freer exercise of her natural faculties.
No true reform grows out of reciprocal denunciation.
When your angry thunders have been launched, and the
opposing clouds dissolve from the exhaustion of their supply,
the sunshine of tolerance and charity shines between, and the
lowering fragments fuse gently together in the golden gleam
of the twilight. Let me speak to you from the neutral ground
of universal humanity; let me tell you of some wrongs of
woman which none of you need go far to see—some rights
which each man of you, to whom God has given a help-meet,

may grant beside his own hearth-stone and the cradle of his
children! We Americans boast of our superior civilization;
we look down with a superb commiseration not only upon the
political, but the social and domestic life of other lands.
Let us not forget that the position which woman holds in the
State—always supposing that it does not transcend the destiny
of her sex—is the unerring index on the dial of civilization.
It behooves us, therefore, in order to make good our
boast, to examine her condition among us. We are famed,
and perhaps justly, for the chivalrous respect which we exhibit
towards her in public; do we grant her an equal consideration
in our domestic life? Do we seek to understand her
finer nature, her more delicate sensibilities, her self-sacrificing
desire to share our burdens by being permitted to understand
them?”

The attention of the audience was profoundly enlisted by
these words. The calm, dispassionate, yet earnest tone of the
speaker was something new. It was an agreeable variation
from the anathemas with which they not only did not sympathize,
but which they were too indifferent to resent. Mr. Bemis,
it is true, fidgeted uneasily in his arm-chair, but he was now
quite a secondary person. Woodbury went on to advocate a
private as well as public respect for woman; he painted, in
strong colors, those moral qualities in which she is superior to
man; urged her claim to a completer trust, a more generous
confidence on his part; and, while pronouncing no word that
could indicate an actual sympathy with the peculiar rights
which were the object of the meeting, demanded that they
should receive, at least, a respectful consideration. He
repeated the same manly views which we have already heard
in his conversations with his wife, expressing his faith in the
impossibility of any permanent development not in accordance
with nature, and his confidence that the sex, under whatever
conditions of liberty, would instinctively find its true place.

His address, which lasted nearly an hour, was received with
hearty satisfaction by his auditors. To the advocates of the

reform it was a mixture of honey and gall. He had started,
apparently, from nearly the same point; his path, for a while,
had run parallel with theirs, and then, without any sensible
divergence, had reached a widely different goal. Somehow,
he had taken, in advance, all the strength out of Mr. Chubbuck's
oration; for, although the latter commenced with an
attack on Woodbury's neutral attitude, declaring that “we
cannot serve two masters,” the effort was too sophistical to
deceive anybody. His speech, at least, had the effect to
restore Mr. Bemis to good humor. Miss Silsbee, a maiden
lady from Atauga City, was then persuaded to say a few
words. She recommended the audience to “preserve their
individuality: when that is gone, all is gone,” said she. “Be
not like the foolish virgins, that left their lamps untrimmed.
O trim your wicks before the eleventh hour comes, and the
Master finds you sleeping!”

There seemed to be but a very remote connection between
these expressions and the doctrine of Women's Rights, and
the audience, much enlivened by the fact, dispersed, after
adopting the customary resolutions by an overwhelming majority.
“We have sowed the field afresh,” cried Mr. Bemis,
rubbing his hands, as he turned to his friends on the platform,
“in spite of the tares of the Enemy.” This was a figurative
allusion to Woodbury.

The latter resisted an invitation to take tea with the Waldos,
in order to hurry home to his wife. Mrs. Waldo had
been one of his most delighted hearers, and her parting words
were: “Remember, if you don't tell Hannah every thing you
said, I shall do it, myself!”

On reaching Lakeside, Hannah came to the door to meet
him. Her troubled expression had passed away, and a deep,
wonderful light of happiness was on her face. Her eyes trembled
in their soft splendor, like stars through the veil of falling
dew, and some new, inexpressible grace clung around her
form. She caught his hands eagerly, and her voice came low
and vibrant with its own sweetness.

“Did you take my place, Maxwell?” she asked.

He laughed cheerfully. “Of course I did. I made the
longest speech of my life. It did not satisfy Bemis, I am sure,
but the audience took it kindly, and you, Hannah, if you had
been there, would have accepted the most of it.”

“I know I should!” she exclaimed. “You must tell me all
—but not now. Now you must have your reward—oh, Maxwell,
I think I can reward you!”

“Give me another kiss, then.”

He stooped and took it. She laid her arms around his neck,
and drew his ear to her lips. Then she whispered a few fluttering
words. When he lifted his face she saw upon it the
light and beauty of unspeakable joy.