NAWSA GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE Cheney, Ednah D. EDNAH DOW CHENEY 1824-1904 Ednah D. Cheney Ednah D. Cheney 1824 - 1904 EDNAH DOW CHENEY Di Costei si puo dire: Gentil e in donna cio che in lei si trova; E bello e tanto, quanto lei simiglia. DANTE, CANZ. - AMOR CHE NELLA MENTE. MEMORIAL MEETING NEW ENGLAND WOMEN'S CLUB BOSTON FEBRUARY 20, 1905 BOSTON GEO H. ELLIS CO., PRINTERS, 272 CONGRESS STREET 1905 MEMORIAL MEETING. Mrs. Ednah Dow Cheney died at her home in Jamaica Plain, Nov. 18, 1904. The New England Women's Club, of which she was one of the founders, and until her death an active and distinguished officer, held a memorial meeting in her honor at the New Century Building in Boston on the afternoon of Feb. 20, 1905. Howe Hall was filled with a crowd of friends, gathered in loving and reverent memory of a noble soul, - a life that had been more eloquent than any words. A wealth of palms and flowers from her family and fellow-members adorned the platform, - lovely spring blossoms, daffodils and hyacinths, roses and carnations, with a profusion of delicate green, and a great plant of beautiful golden genesta in full bloom. At one side were several photographs of Mrs. Cheney, - one from the crayon picture by her artist-husband, so early lost, - and at the other stood George Fuller's exquisite portrait of Mrs. Cheney's daughter Margaret, who died, full of promise, in 1882. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe presided, and made the opening address, as follows : - ADDRESS OF MRS. HOWE. There is surely no happier office accorded to us mortals than that of praising those whom we love. Yet this welcome duty brings with it an anxiety to perform it fully, and to speak the right word concerning our departed friend, or else to keep silence. Our dear Ednah Cheney is so deeply associated with the life and history of this New England Women's Club that she still appears to me a living part of it. The years in which we had the benefit of her sound, temperate judgment and felt the charm of her sympathetic presence seem to throw their light beyond the chasm of her bodily separation from us, and to make her beautiful memory "a joy forever." Of Mrs. Cheney's girlhood I know only what she has told me. She was early attracted by Margaret Fuller. At the age of sixteen, having a sum of money at command, she invested it by becoming a pupil of that remarkable woman. Early in their intercourse, -4- Margaret asked, "Is life rich to you?" "It is since I have known you, was Ednah's reply. In years that followed she was fed with the fine spirit of Transcendentalism, which left its impress upon her life. I had no acquaintance with her before her marriage, but met her soon after this at some meetings of women which Theodore Parker held in his famous study. Her spiritual nurture had been remove from the orthodoxy of her times. Mine had been in the very heart of it. In questions regarding, for example, the ethical tendencies of human character, we were rather on opposite sides, her view being much more optimistic than mine. Her whole tone of mind at that time seemed to indicate content and happiness. I lost sight of her for a long time, and heard incidentally of her husband's death. Meeting her one day in a store, with her little Margaret in her hand, the pathos of her loss came over me. We exchanged greetings. Tears rose to my eyes, and were answered by hers. Neither of us ever forgot that meeting. She became, as you all know, one of the founders of this club. I also enjoyed this honor, but was not, as she was, one of those who pledged the financial backing which was necessary for the starting of the enterprise. It was on this new ground that I first gained some acquaintance with her noble qualities. She was wise in counsel, with a mind of widely comprehensive character. All narrowness of judgment was abhorrent to her. She fully appreciated the varieties of human taste and inclination; and, while she could philosophize soundly and deeply, she could also appreciate the need of relaxation and amusement. We were all younger thirty years ago than we are now. I remember some club charades, in one of which Mrs. Cheney personated Father Hyacinthe, who was in Boston at that time. In another I played the part of Punch to her Judy, and Susan Hale, inimitable in her comic vein, personated the devil, who carries Punch away in requital for his evil deeds. In the Radical Club, as in Parker's study, Mrs. Cheney and I were not wholly agreed. She was somewhat distrustful of the preeminence of Christianity over other world-religions, and was attracted, as was Mr. Emerson, by some features of the Hindu theosophy. She was always for justice, and it was this trait which made her help to start the Free Religious Association, in which, as elsewhere, she proved a tower of strength to her associates. She was deeply interested in the movement for woman suffrage, and was often a participant in our hearings before the Legislature -5- of Massachusetts. She was present and spoke on that, to me, memorable day when, an illiterate female demagogue having spoken furiously against woman suffrage, the question was propounded "whether, if suffrage were granted to women, those of lower life and character would not flood the polls, while those of superior station and education would stay away." Mr. Garrison rose, and said: "Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the present occasion answers that question. Here are intelligence and education petitioning for suffrage, and here are ignorance and vulgarity inveighing against it." In my club life and in my suffrage work, Mrs. Cheney was a prominent figure, always wise, always helpful. But it was in the Association for the Advancement of Women that I became most intimately associated with her. Surely, her part in this Association was not the least of her good works. It was formed by the New York Sorosis in that city, with a very wide programme, Mrs. Livermore being its first president. She was succeeded by Maria Mitchell, of blessed Vassar memory. Miss Mitchell was followed by Mrs. Doggett. Of its presidents I was the last and longest. For the space of twenty- five years we held an annual congress, in which the officers and speakers were women. We went north as far as Canada, west to Colorado, south to New Orleans. In this last-named city Mrs. Cheney read a paper on her beloved Margaret Fuller, of whom she always spoke with a deep feeling of reverence and gratitude. On these occasions Mrs. Cheney would wear beautiful Cheney silks and rich laces. She had no fondness for dress, but understood its importance sufficiently to make always a suitable appearance. The beauty of her head needed no adornment. Her presence in public assemblies was impressive, her countenance and demeanor expressing the calm dignity of her character, -- a dignity tempered, if I may say so, by the deepest and tenderest humanity. Let me imagine, for a moment, that we are starting on one of our long-distance trips. I came from my Boston home. Ednah Cheney meets me at the station, with a little group of cheerful, determined sisters, who have set their faces toward Canada, Denver, or New Orleans. We are full of hope. Our efficient treasurer, Henrietta Wolcott, is with us; and we talk of the place of our destination, the arrangements made there for our lodging and for our business conferences and public meetings. As we journey, our -6- band is re-enforced by members who join us at various stopping- places. At Syracuse Mary Bagg, head our our Art Committee, comes on board the Pullman. At Buffalo we find Harriet Townshend, founder of the Buffalo Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and Mary Ripley, of blessed memory. Chicago grants us Kate Newell Doggett, founder of the Fortnightly, which has socialized and so civilized that new city. And so on and so on. Arriving at our place of destination, we are greeted by a joyous deputation, seized upon, and deported to the most hospitable homes in the city, where that very evening we may be required to appear at a meeting of the foremost citizens. Ednah Cheney, Maria Mitchell, Abby May,--with such women to show, it made little difference as to the company assembled if our trunks, with best dresses, had been delayed in transportation. Talk of the man with the hoe! We were the women with the plough. To us it was given to draw the furrow and drop the seed from which have sprung up clubs and federations scarcely to be numbered. Only one word more. When a meeting like this was held in Concord, Mass., in commemoration of Mr. Emerson, then recently deceased, while glowing tributes were paid to his genius, Mr. Alcott, in a poem of some length, was constrained to dwell upon the sorrow of his personal loss. Even so, in speaking here of our dear friend, I must say that the merits of her public life do not half exhaust the tale of her virtues. Those who knew her well and intimately were aware of a depth of sincerity and sweetness, of a breadth and generosity of judgment, of a nameless personal charm and beauty of soul which must ever enshrine her image in loving hearts. ADDRESS OF MR. SANBORN. Mr. F. B. Sanborn of Concord said:-- Our friend whose memory we honor to-day, as we cherish it every day, had such variety and richness in her nature, and was granted so long a lifetime in which to exercise her gifts, that I must confine these remarks to her ideal and philosophic character. This developed early. She belonged to that honored and ever-lengthening list of "Boston idealists" which began with Blackstone and Maverick, before Winthrop arrived with his colonists, and was continued by Vane, Wheelwright, the persecuted Quakers, Anne 7 Hutchinson, Franklin, Langdon, the Adamses, the Emersons, the Channings, the Phillipses, Theodore Parker, Mrs. Child, John Dwight, and so many more, down to the latest times. It is this whole class which one of our historical societies has just honored; and, in what I had to say then, Mrs. Cheney was included as one who always converted her idealism into practical service for her sex and for ours. But to-day I am to speak more definitely of her philosophic character and culture. These caused her to be one of the founders and constant participants of the Concord School of Philosophy, which for ten years was an influence on the side of idealism in the growing materialization of our New England life. One or two of those persons in the councils of our school who preferred the systematic presentation of argument and method to the spiritual quickening of philosophic thought, peculiar to Alcott and Emerson, would sometimes ask what claim Mrs. Cheney, or even Mrs. Howe, had to be called philosophers. I could have replied that, among institutional philosophers, all women are to be reckoned, since they excel in that gift of intuition. But, without championing Mrs. Howe, who has ever been able to take her own part, I have something to say of Ednah Cheney in this connection, and to illustrate it by its early utterances of her own. Few women, even in Boston, the home and birthplace of woman's culture (for America), have ever earlier and more constantly looked at the problem of life in the genuine philosophic light than did our departed friend. Wordsworth speaks of: "Years that bring the philosophic mind." But Ednah Littlehale was born with that reflective and serious tendency which in her was greatly cultivated under the early influence of Emerson, Alcott, and especially Theodore Parker, who combined with deep philosophic through a singular power of popularizing it in his impressive oratory. After some years of Parker's ministry, which united teaching in private classes and conversations, with preaching and pastoral visiting, his earnest disciple, who at the same time was Alcott's listener and reporter in those inspiring conversations for which he set the fashion in Boston, Ednah Littlehale, wrote thus to a young friend who had asked her counsel for the arrangement of her time and the order of her studies. The counsellor was but twenty-five, the counselled approaching twenty, the date being Nov. 11, 1849:-- 8 Your outward course of life will consist of three parts: (1) the time spent at P. with your father, which will be a large portion of the year; (2) another portion spent with your brother, which you will consider as being hardly less at home; and (3) the time spent at the seashore and in visiting your friends. Active labor not being much open to you, study, to obtain full possession of your intellectual powers, seems to be your work in regard to yourself; and the diffusion of higher intellectual, moral, and spiritual ideas, to all with whom you come in contact, is your work for others. If the duty to yourself be first performed, see how large a sphere your wide intercourse with others and your genial, sympathetic nature give you for the second duty. You should no longer plan for a winter or a summer only, but for a longer time, - say five years, the period I have chosen for myself. This will give time for even the slight and slow progress, and you will not feel so hurried to accomplish everything at once. Method is indispensable, but it need not be the outward method of time and quantity, but of relative importance. Settle in your own mind what studies are most important, and set those down as first; then others as second, which are to give way if time or strength fail or circumstances interrupt. That third division of your year must be your vacation time, when you will learn by observation, and will gather that general, desultory culture which gives richness and variety to a mind strengthened by severe labor. Two Latin mottoes I wish to give you in the beginning, "Non multa sed multum," and from Cicero, "Quod est, eo decet uti, et quidquid agas, agere pro viribus." Again, if possible, study everything with another person. The advantages are many. You gather encouragement and stimulus from sympathy, you are more accurate and methodical, and others respect your engagements, and do not break in upon your time. When you cannot have a companion (pupil or teacher), form the habit of making an abstract of your lessons in writing. Do not expect too much from this habit at first, but learn to record, - not the salient, bright thoughts, the beautiful illustrations, - but the processes of reasoning, the important facts or laws. I might qualify this advice to some others, but not to you. And now what shall be the studies? Here are five principal departments: Natural Science, or the knowledge of things; History, or the knowledge of men in their social and political relations; Mental Philosophy, or the knowledge of the mind in all its varied relations; Languages, or knowledge of the signs of thought, which, you see, bears relations to all the other departments; Mathematics, the science of numbers. All these should have their place in a full and harmonious education; but, at the point where you are now, which is most important? I am much in favor of your pursuing at least one branch of natural science; but, as you seem to have an utter distaste for it, 9 I do not urge it for the present, only hoping you may include it somewhere in your five years' course. Vegetable physiology, of which you now know, perhaps, more than of any other branch, would be easy and attractive. Of Mental Philosophy I am becoming much enamoured. It has this advantage, - that it receives all the various facts, ideas, thoughts you have gathered, of whatever kind: it deals with the consciousness of man, and its duty is to methodize everything that contains. I should confidently recommend this branch to you. As to what books to study, I must rely much on the judgment of others. I think it well to read Locke, from his very dryness and hardness. He wants clearness, and consistency of reasoning, very often. Still, he has made many admirable and searching investigations into the laws of thought; and his very inconsistencies make him a good starting-point, from which you can either take the ideal philosophers who oppose him, or the sensationalists, who carry out his principles to their logical conclusion. Brown, Stewart, Reid, Damiron, etc., will belong to the list. I have yet read none of them. I am now reading Degerando on Self-education, - a beautiful treatise on morals, which I should most warmly recommend for its moral and spiritual influence. But it lacks method, closeness, and accuracy, as a book for mental discipline. History, too, is distasteful to you; but a few hints I will offer. It is usually studied first in general, and afterward in special. I would nearly reverse that plan. Using, perhaps, Tytler, or some other Universal History merely as a ground plan, I would then take it by epochs, not so much confining yourself to the order of time as taking first those which interested you. One will lead you on to another. I would read at the same time, for your general or evening reading, whatever of poetry, novel, or biography you could find relating to the same period. If you take Grecian history, - to me a most attractive subject,- I think Gillies a charming book. Mr. Parker adds Grote and Thirlwall, of whom I know nothing. Your neighbor, Dr. A., has Bancroft's translation of Heeren: take that, and all the Lives of Greeks in Plutarch. At the same time you will find place for Landor's "Pericles and Aspasia," perhaps, - I believe a favorite of yours. Take Mrs. Child's "Philothea," Homer's Iliad (O for Chapman's, or the original!), any translation of Greek plays, and any other works of the kind you can find; and, if you like, the geography of the country. If you take Rome, Mr. Parker gives Arnold, Michelet, and Gibson, with Plutarch again. You have then Shakespeare's Roman plays, Bulwer's "Pompeii," - almost the only novel of his I would recommend, - Ware's fine books, etc. Many other things which you have already read will acquire a new interest then. If you take the Italian Republics, Sismondi and Machiavelli are the only historians I know about; but you know what a flood of interesting reading comes in connection with them. 10 A favorite epoch with me is the Protestant Reformation, the Thirty Years' War in Germany, and the Revolt of the Netherlands. Here Schiller would be your charming companion. Of English or American history I will say nothing, nor of that still more interesting topic, the French Revolution. What a world opens before us, indeed, as we think of these subjects ! Of languages I should like to have you study any-especially English-grammatically and analytically; and the practice of defining, as you began to do last summer, might be very valuable to you. I would not take up any new language at present, and would rather you read French and Italian books in connection with your course of study than merely for practice, unless you can find some one to study with you or to instruct in them. I will say nothing of mathematics: first, because I know almost nothing. I should not recommend it now, more than the practice of Arithmetic, in which I do not remember how far you are progressed or whether you are apt or not. There are also the plastic arts and Poetry, but your taste is sufficiently cultivated to need no spur from me; and I would leave them for vacation times, until you are much farther advanced in other things. As history is philosophy teaching by examples, I have quoted these wise remarks partly to show how early Miss Littlehale was well grounded in that branch, and partly because of the small amount of good history then available. She did not mention Plato and the Greek philosophers, because she had already been reading with her young friend in the Dialogues of Plato; and they heard together the Conversations of Alcott, the Boston Socrates. What was known as "Mental Philosophy" half a century ago is now "Psychology," and has expanded into one or two other subdivisions of the great tract of Philosophy, most of whose provinces were considered at Concord. Mrs. Cheney dealt chiefly with art and history, but joined in the discussion upon points in literature and the philosophy specifically known as Transcendental, or intuitional. Her acquaintance with German and Italian literature was extensive, as well as her familiarity with German, Italian, Spanish, French, and English art,-greatly increased as that was by her marriage with that gifted artist, Seth Cheney, by whose side she is buried at South Manchester. She was one of the speakers at the revival of the Concord School in 1903, and met with us for the last time in Alcott Chapel, by the Orchard House, where our modest enterprise began, with Alcott, Emerson, and herself present, in July, 1879. From the same correspondence just cited, I take a few words 11 addressed to her young friend in June, 1850, when Miss Littlehale first identified herself with the public maintenance of Woman's Cause, rather against the sensitive anxieties of her correspondent:- Dearest child, I have looked into the possible future, and seen the cross, the shame, the notoriety; but in the probable future I see only a more earnest striving, but with little accomplished in the outward, and without public observation. My ideality struggles, indeed, with my stronger nature; and I cannot take the strong, direct course which others can. While you are fearing that courage and determination are in danger of leading me too far, I fear more that cowardice and irresolution should keep me from going at all. I believe you will sympathize in what I shall say and do, and I shall leave it to my works to prove my discretion and temper. I do not mean to bate one jot of woman's best duties, but to extend them, and to give her higher and broader ground from which to view them. I have been surprised to find how much interest and favor the convention meets with. Several persons have spoken respectfully of it whom I expected to sneer and laugh,-N. P. Willis, for instance; although I think his championship results from personal feeling. In regard to one very important branch of the subject, the medical education of women, I have found a response from almost every person addressed. Two years later (1852), when the Memoirs of Margaret Fuller came, of whom Ednah Littlehale had been an admiring hearer at her Boston conversations in youth, she wrote to the same young friend:- I am reading Margaret Fuller's Life with the interest you may imagine,-especially her youth is very real to me. It is a reproduction of what she was to me, and I see myself in it, as I always did in her. Only she was far greater, richer, more intense. I am diluted; and perhaps, for that very reason, at twenty-seven have a stout frame, an uncurved spine, and a head that does not often ache, either with thought or neuralgia. So runs the compensation. If I had known her in life as I know her in this book, I would have sent her one of the many letters I wrote her in my heart, and the outward bond would have been closer; but perhaps her influence was strong enough. My own individuality might have been crushed under a stronger. I feel here, as I always did with her, a painful sense of inferiority; and yet it kindles life. At the Concord School we looked upon Mrs. Cheney as a link connecting us with that unfinished career of Margaret Fuller, whose life expended itself in thoughts and books, which Ednah's was of 12 that richly practical kind in which philosophic thought should always result. The philosophers, men or women, will not often govern nations, as Plato hoped; but, unless they turn their ideals into actual things, in some sphere narrow or broad, as their fortune may direct, they have almost lived in vain, except for their influence on their successors. We have the comfort of knowing that Mrs. Cheney put her theories of life in practice, and so left her memory to the guardianship of permanent institutions. ADDRESS OF MISS PEABODY. Miss Lucia M. Peabody, Honorary Vice-President of the New England Women's Club, said: - It is my part this afternoon to speak briefly of Mrs. Cheney's connection with the early days of our club. The first meetings for considering the formation of such a body were held in the summer of 1867. There are not many of us left now who can remember that early history. The club was finally established in February, 1868, so that we are now quite an old institution, and can look back over a good many years. Mrs. Cheney was interested at once in the new plan, and attended most of the preliminary and formative meetings in the autumn of 1867-68, helping to formulate the general purposes, which were at first somewhat vague. Women's clubs or women's associations are now a recognized power in the land, whose meetings and movements are chronicled with respect, and rouse great interest. So it is not easy for any but the oldest members of our body to understand the shouts of derision, the storms of ridicule, which greeted the new club. All the cheap wit of the newspapers was lavished upon it, and the scorn and sneers which were poured upon it hindered not a few from joining who were personally quite in favor of the movement. But Mrs. Cheney, as Mr. Sanborn's paper has amply proved, was not the woman to be turned from any cause she believed in by jeers and laughter. But, with all her breadth of view and faith in the near uplift of women, even she could hardly have anticipated the rapid growth and immense development of the club movement which to-day so binds the women of our land together. Our club, one of the pioneers, began with no definite or formu- 13 lated plan of club life. The present methods have grown gradually by natural processes of development, which Mrs. Cheney, however, aided largely in shaping. Its distinctly stated purpose was to provide a place of meeting for the comfort and convenience of its members, and thus to give an opportunity for women of like minds and like interests to meet and take counsel together upon subjects of general importance. That this foundation stone - this provision for the comfort and convenience of members - should be so disregarded in these later days, though perhaps a more or less inevitable result of the growth of the city, is, nevertheless, greatly to be regretted. In the earliest days the holding of general meetings of members, to consider questions of interest, was only a natural step and onward movement in club life; and Mrs. Cheney was most helpful in forwarding these. She held, rightly, that men of thought and purpose would often be glad of an opportunity to speak to an audience of appreciative women on subjects in which they wished to create an interest and about which they did not care to speak in public. That this, which would no longer be possible in these days, was very possible then, is proved by the list of speakers who came to us as friends, including such men as Emerson, Henry James, John Weiss, James Freeman Clarke, Edward Everett Hale, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, and many others. Mrs. Cheney was always one of those instrumental in securing such speakers. In those times, too, the club had its festival days, - days on which it commemorated the noble men and women of the past: Charles Sumner, Margaret Fuller, Washington Allston, Michel Angelo, and our own Dr. Howe, in the Festival of Immortality, and others. The very names of many of these suggest the part which Mrs. Cheney must have taken in such celebrations. The club, too, was younger then, and often held its own frolics, entering with hearty enjoyment into the fun and wit of its "teas" and other merry occasions. It is only necessary to mention the names of Julia Ward Howe, Ednah D. Cheney, Abby W. May, Louisa M. Alcott, and Harriet Sewall, - not to make a longer list, - to make sure that, where they frolicked together, it was good to be present and feel that life could be very bright and gay. But it was not merely in the literary work of the club that Mrs. Cheney was interested. The club early took part in active work, one of the first projects in which it was engaged being the Horticultural School for Women; and here Mrs. Cheney was a valued 14 helper. This school promised a new field for women's industry; but when the Bussey Institute was established by Harvard, and thrown open equally to men and women, the Horticultural School was given up as no longer needed. Mrs. Cheney took a part also in securing the establishment of the Latin School for Girls in this city. The movement for this school had its origin in our Education Committee (of which Mrs. Cheney was for so many years chairman) and was pushed energetically to a successful conclusion. She took an active interest, also, with Miss May and others, in the effort to secure the election of women on the school board; and after that was accomplished, in the next step, which resulted in giving women the right to vote for members of that board, the agitation on this question being largely due to the work of our club. ADDRESS OF MR. GARRISON. Mr. William Lloyd Garrison said:-- I am asked to speak a few words concerning Mrs. Cheney's work in connection with the New England Freedmen's Aid Society, to which for a period of ten years her energies were devoted.The Northern jubilation excited by the surrender of Lee and the close of the civil War was speedily followed by dismay at the assassination of Lincoln. Then came the task of educating the four million freedmen for the new conditions of freedom. This light-heartedness of victory gave way to serious concern as grave problems arose. The South, defeated and impoverished, called for prompt help in its social reconstruction. Differing projects were urged; and, in a chaotic time, many blunders were unavoidable. But upon one point, that of educating the negroes, there was no disagreement. No portion of the people faced these difficulties with more serious or unselfish purpose than the New England Abolitionists. Against the slave-holders they held no enmity. However 15 vigorous their hatred of slavery, their one desire was for the quickest revival of Southern prosperity and the healing of sectional differences. Even before emancipation was in sight, its advocates, so far from wishing evil to the South, rejoiced in the thought that, when relieved of its great burden of human bondage, the Southern people would gain immensely in wealth and comfort. I remember hearing me father say, "The worst wish that I have for the South is that its wilderness may blossom like the rose under the sunlight of freedom." And he looked for old hostility to cease, and fora real union of States when the day of jubilee arrived. I refer to these conditions to explain the eagerness with which all those who had sought to destroy the slave system now entered into the work of rebuilding the new South. To engage in this work, the Abolitionists disbanded their societies, and, re-enforced by an army of younger men and women, enlisted in the necessary work. Foremost among the leaders was Mrs. Cheney. She organized and was the active and efficient secretary of the New England Aid Society, which for years supported a corps of teachers for the colored schools in South Carolina and along the Southern coast. To this work she brought sound judgment and rare discernment, both in the policy pursued and in the proper selection of teachers. The early teachers were many of them volunteers from the best New England families, going from homes of comfort and culture to labor among the poor and ignorant in rough surroundings, and in communities where they were ostracized by the native whites. They were the advance-guard, sowing the seeds of civilization with as high and noble a purpose as ever inspired crusader or missionary. As a tribute to the insight and wisdom of Mrs. Cheney and her assistants, I recall the testimony of an English gentleman, a nephew of Mary Howitt, on his return from a visit to the South. He said it was needless to ask from which quarter of the North the New England teachers came: it was self-evident. Many were from families honorable in contemporary history, and were only taking their natural part in that thrilling period. To them the negroes flocked from town and plantation, ignorant and childlike, earnest for instruction in the Yankee schools. At this dawn of freedom, hopes were large and expectations sanguine. The long and slow process of replacing Southern society on a safe 16 foundation was only partially appreciated, and the exhilaration of the new service had not yet been chilled by experience. How delightful, then, was the yearly summer return of the teachers, with their cheering report of their eager pupils, full of pathetic and humorous anecdotes calculated to touch and stimulate their Northern supporters. At these reunions Mrs. Cheney and Colonel Higginson were leading and happy spirits, she with her overflowing but balanced enthusiasm, he with charming reminiscence and ready wit. No one could attend these occasions without sharing their contagious confidence in the future. What a womanly atmosphere was that of Mrs. Cheney, surcharged with benevolence, culture, and unstudied social tact, genial, and radiating! A simple speech from her impressed the hearer with a sense of her unusual quality and character, transcending mere brilliancy or accomplishments. Her presence alone was a guarantee of her capacity and worth. Her steadfast temper made her devotion to the freedman's work unflagging. She made repeated visits to the South, taking a deep interest in Hampton, Tuskegee, and especially Atlanta. I emphasize Atlanta University, because she held an uncompromising faith in race coeducation and the duty of offering the negro the highest possible advantages. In her view, learning knew no color line, and negro aspiration was not to be limited at the point of manual skill. Mrs. Cheney has given a graphic picture of those days when she worked with such an admirable committee as that composed of Abby W. May, Hannah Stevenson, William C. Gannett, Rev. John Parkman, and Lucretia Crocker. She tells in her interesting chapter of reminiscences of going to a convention at Baltimore with Miss May as a delegate. She says: "We were always uniting societies and changing constitutions, and half the time did not know what our real title was. It was a good deal of a puzzle to our entertainers- who were, by the way, a most admirable set of men, but had not yet outgrown their prejudices-to have two women and a colored brother on the list of delegates." I have alluded to a segment only of this noble woman's helpful activities. Her own story of her life and the loving tributes of friends explain the estimate in which her memory is held. It is enough to say that she represents that high type of character and service which has made New England exceptional in the country's annals. 17 ADDRESS OF MRS. RICHARDS. Mrs. Ellen S. Richards of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said: It is a remarkable fact that with such strong art instincts and training, and with associations of so marked literary and aesthetic character, Mrs. Cheney should have sympathized so warmly with the scientific thought of the day, and should have so calmly surrendered her ambitions for her daughter's artistic career, and accepted the marked scientific bent, at a time when such tastes were not recognized as womanly. I say calmly, for even her close friends never knew the real disappointment she felt when it became evident that Margaret's eyes would not permit of her following in her father's footsteps. From the time of this acceptance of fate's decree every encouragement was given to Margaret to follow her studies in botany and chemistry, even to the extent of fitting up a small laboratory for herself and her friends in an upper room in her own house. Several exact experiments in oven temperatures were made by Mrs. Cheney herself at this time, and the possibilities of the application of science to every-day life were thus early outlined. What more could woman do, when chemical research meant only bad smells to most women? This attitude of mind only indicates the breadth of view which we recognize in all Mrs. Cheney's life. Some of us were obliged to go against the wishes and prejudices of our friends, but Mrs. Cheney gave us encouragement and moral support at the very time we most needed it. Margaret entered the teachers' classes in chemistry at the Institute of Technology in 1873 or 1874, and continued in the private class for advanced work until the opening of the Woman's Laboratory in 1876. She then gave more time to the work and took up other subjects, so that, if she had not left in the winter of 1881 for a long trip to California with the family, she would undoubtedly have been the second woman to receive the degree. Her progress as an investigator is illustrated by a paper on "A New and Ready Method for the Estimation of Nickel in Pyrrhotites and Mattes." The electrical deposition of nickel was then a comparatively new process, with unknown possibilities. Several other chemical investigations were in progress, although botany held a large share of her interest. Her zeal and her love of her work were of great 18 importance to the setting of a standard in the early days of scientific study by women. Her illness and death in the autumn of 1882 seemed to us all a blow hardly to be borne; and, when a neighbor and warm friend, Mr. M. D. Ross, suggested a reading-room for the young women of the Institute as a memorial to Margaret, Mrs. Cheney entered into the plan most heartily, believing that in this way her daughter's spirit and influence might go on, even if her life here had passed beyond our ken. Fuller's admirable portrait of Margaret was painted in 1884, and was one of his last works. It was done for the Margaret Cheney Reading-room, but with the understanding that it was to be retained by Mrs. Cheney during her life. While the mother's heart yearned over these young students, the thoughtful woman constantly showed her belief in the capacity of woman's brain to understand and even to advance scientific knowledge; and the ardent advocate for the opportunity to exercise whatever of ability the girl might prove to have, fostered all means which should make this opportunity a fair one. In all these years I had occasion to learn much of Mrs. Cheney's tolerance, of her wisdom in dealing with difficult situations, of her great hopes for the future work and influence of women, and of her far-sighted yet patient zeal for the diffusion of scientific knowledge by all, both men and women. Her visits were greatly enjoyed by all the young women, and she never spoke to them without giving something of her own earnestness and faith. To her we students of science owe a debt for inspiration as well as for practical help; and we shall cherish her memory as day by day we enjoy the results of her thoughtfulness for our comfort, and recall her example. ADDRESS OF MRS. BUTLER Mrs. Emma E. Butler, Secretary of the New England Hospital for Women and Children, said:- Not many years ago I invited a company of ladies to assist me in a work for the hospital, and asked Mrs. Cheney if she would be willing to tell them something of the life and purpose of the New England Hospital for Women and Children. The ready answer, "Yes, indeed, I never refuse when asked to do anything for the hospital," came to my mind as I hesitated about 19 trying to speak to you this afternoon; and I am here not because I feel worthy, but because I knew Mrs. Cheney would say, "Go, and do the best you can." I think it is true that, if we seek for the beginning, the first cause, in any work for the uplifting of humanity, we always find it in the thought of a few brave, unselfish men or women, brave enough to face any difficulty, unselfish enough to bear all things for another's good. In such thought was our hospital born. Nearly fifty years ago Dr. Zakrzewska came over the sea, seeking in the New World room for growth and an opportunity to help others to grow. She found in Boston in a little group of noble men and women, one of whom was Mrs. Ednah Dow Cheney, who believed so fully that the world needed the woman physician, and that women to fill the need could be found, that, rich only in faith, and with courage that knew no defeat, they founded the New England Hospital for Women and Children, in order that suffering women might be helped by physicians of their own sex, and that the woman physician might receive practical hospital training which would fit her to go out into the world as well prepared to serve as were her brothers. It is hard for us who, to-day when some pressing hospital need has been presented in the board meetings, have been able to vote thousands of dollars for its accomplishment, to realize the difficulties which were met and overcome in those early days, when week after week an empty treasury was replenished only by the personal efforts of officers and directors. Now the woman physician is honored and beloved in every land. Then it needed courage even to believe in the possibility. Doubt and sometimes ridicule had to be met bravely. Those were days of soul-testing, when the faint-hearted fell by the way. During all that time, until called to fill the place of president, Mrs. Cheney was the secretary of the hospital; and one has only to turn to her full and carefully kept records to know how well that work was done. She never lost her interest in it, and those following her have been grateful again and again for her helpful suggestions. As our president, she possessed the dignity born of wisdom, was gentle and calm, but firm and unyielding when once convinced of the justice of a measure. She clearly grasped the vital points of an argument, and repeatedly led a questioning board to victory in the right. 20 Broad-minded, fair, and honest herself, no selfish aim could live in her presence. And while it was inevitable that the board should at times be divided in opinion, under her leadership no bitter feeling was possible. As friends, they must agree to disagree. Mrs. Cheney was deeply appreciative of the faithful, skilful work of the medical staff, upon which rests all true hospital success. She honored and referenced their high calling, and her last words spoken in a hospital board meeting were in praise of our physicians. Her belief that the needless giving of charity tends to pauperize has become a hospital tenet; and while free beds are gladly provided for the penniless, all poor patients are asked to pay a little according to their means. Even so the hospital gives over one-half of its service in charity. Her position, that no director simply because she is a director should ever use her influence to enter a patient whom otherwise the hospital must refuse, is universally respected. No expenditure seemed to her too large that was needed to secure the best, most approved appliances known to medical science for the benefit of patients, internes, or nurses, no outlay extravagant that brought comfort and pleasure to the sick ones. But the directors in their parlors must be satisfied with Spartan simplicity. And when elevator trips were limited, it was the directors, following Mrs. Cheney's example, who climbed the stairs, that patients might more freely ride. For years she was chairman of the Nurses' Training School Committee, and her influence will always be felt for good in the school. She decreed that in choosing among applicants fitness should be the only test. Religious belief, color, nationality, must never enter into the decision. Fortunate were the nurses who came under her influence. She helped them to see the beauty and worth in a life of service, spoke to them words of counsel and encouragement never to be forgotten. When one failed, she gently pointed out that failure along one path left many yet untried; success would be sure to come if the purpose was right. When another knowingly did wrong, the fault was held up to her in all its ugliness kindly, yet so plainly, that she must have been hardened indeed not to hate it, and determine to do better. In truth, Mrs. Cheney's love, devotion, wise precepts, are so woven into the very life of the hospital, we cannot think of its existence without them. 21 In the blessing of her rare friendship, the example of her exalted womanhood, those privileged to work with her grew braver and nobler. In loving her, they found a better, truer self. How often she came to them as from the mountain top, where her eyes had seen the glory, and they plodding on in the common way caught something of the reflected light, and all the hardness, the bitterness of the struggle was transfigured, and became a part of the eternal universal plan in lifting the world up into righteousness! God gives to each generation only a few such souls, that the campfires of his truth may be kept brightly burning. And now she has gone; and none know, none better than we, "that there has passed away a glory from the earth." ADDRESS OF MISS BLACKWELL Miss Alice Stone Blackwell said:--- More than half a century ago, when my father was a young man living in Cincinnati, he used to read in the anti-slavery papers articles written by Miss Ednah Littlehale. He was so much impressed and delighted with them that he long cherished a secret hope of some day coming to the East, making Miss Littlehale's acquaintance, and trying to persuade her to marry him. Before they ever met, she was married to Mr. Cheney, and he to my mother; but I have always thought it did honor to my father's discernment that even in his early youth he should have recognized so clearly the rare intelligence and goodness revealed in Mrs. Cheney's writings. In a sense, I have an hereditary right to admire and love her. Mrs. Cheney was always a firm friend and supporter of woman suffrage, from the first National Woman's Rights Convention, referred to by Mr. Sanborn, held at Worcester, Mass., in 1850, down to the time when she gave me a hundred dollars for the Woman's Journal, only a week before her death. She spoke for woman suffrage at many conventions and legislative hearings, was an officer of the American, New England, and Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Associations, and was the author of the best leaflets ever written in favor of municipal suffrage for women. Mrs. Cheney helped the cause of equal rights, not only by what she did, but by what she was. The fact that a woman of her solid 22 sense and excellent judgment thoroughly believed in equal suffrage was strong presumptive evidence in its favor; and her whole life and character were an object-lesson on the absurdity of classing all women politically with infants, idiots, illiterates, and felons. She also helped woman suffrage and other good causes indirectly by the inspiration that she gave unconsciously to those who were working for them. To know a human being of Mrs. Cheney's breadth and nobility of character was in itself uplifting. I never caught sight of her, in the street or the office, on the platform or among a crowd, without feeling as one does on coming in view of Mount Monadnock. As the sight of that lofty summit refreshes the eyes when one has been traveling in a tame and flat country, so across the levels of every-day life and work a glimpse of Mrs. Cheney always refreshed the soul, lifted up the thoughts, and seemed to put iron into the blood and strength into the sinews. And the same inspiration that she was to me she must have been to many others. No one could know her without being the better for it. ADDRESS OF MISS CHANNING. Miss Eva Channing said:— I have been asked to say a few words of Mrs. Cheney's literary work and activity. She was fond of writing, and it seemed as natural a part of her life as reading. I was hardly ever at her house without seeing some unfinished manuscript on her desk. But I want to say one thing at the outset which, I think, all her friends will recognize as true. Mrs. Cheney herself was so much greater than anything she wrote that those who had not the inestimable privilege of knowing her can form no idea, from the printed page she left behind, of the wonderful breadth and wisdom and strength of personality which characterized her. And this I can say without detracting in the least from the real interest and value of much that she wrote. As we should expect from her varied interests, the list of her publications is a miscellaneous one. Leaving aside the numerous essays, lectures, and articles of all sorts which cannot be collected or catalogued, I shall just run over briefly her published works, speaking of only one or two at all in detail, and making no attempt at chronological order. Of all that she has written, I feel that two or three of her hymns 23 will live the longest. I am going to read to you the most beautiful of these, which she has called "Prayer," and which, I think, will be remembered and sung even after her name is forgotten. And that will be many, many years hence. PRAYER. At first I prayed for sight; Could I but see the way, How gladly would I walk To everlasting day. I asked the world's deep law Before my eyes to ope, And let me see my prayers fulfilled, And realized my hope; But God was kinder than my prayer, And mystery veiled me everywhere. And next I prayed for strength That I might tread the road, With firm unfaltering pace, To heaven's serene abode. That I might never know A faltering, failing heart; But manfully go on And reach the highest part; But God was kinder than my prayer, And weakness checked me everywhere. And then I asked for faith; Could I but trust my God, I'd live in heavenly peace Though foes were all abroad. His light thus shining round, No faltering should I know, And faith in heaven above Would make a heaven below; But God was kinder than my prayer, And doubts beset me everywhere. And now I pray for love, Deep love to God and man; A love that will not fail, However dark His plan; That sees all life in Him, Rejoicing in His power, And faithful, though the darkest clouds Of gloom and doubt may lower. And God was kinder than my prayer: Love filled and blessed me everywhere. 24 Mrs. Cheney wrote several juvenile books, of which the most popular was "Sally Williams," a pretty little story, with a charming setting of New Hampshire scenery. The publishers were always urging her to write more children's stories, and she could have disposed of many books of this character, had she cared to devote the time to writing them. Many invalids and aged persons owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs. Cheney for her little book of "Patience," and she also published a small book of social games. She edited the "Life, Letters, and Journals" of Louisa M. Alcott in a very interesting manner, and wrote a sequel to Ibsen's drama of "The Doll's House." Ibsen, by the way, was one of her favorite authors. She always had a great admiration for his writings. Then there were the three memoirs she prepared of her husband, her husband's brother, and her daughter; and her own most interesting "Reminiscences," which, although begun long ago, were finished and published so short a time before she left us. As we should have expected from her own tastes, as well as from her devotion to the memory of her husband, the subject of art was one on which she often wrote. Her essays bearing the title "Gleanings from the Fields of Art" are more or less well known; but there is another book, her "Life of Rauch, the Sculptor," which is not so well known as it deserves. An old friend of Mrs. Cheney's echoed my own thought the other day when she said: "Of all the books Mrs. Cheney wrote, I think the one she valued most highly and for the success of which she was most ambitious was the Life of Rauch. Yet that is the least known of any of her writings, and the only one to which no reference was made in any of the biographical notices which appeared after her death." When in Berlin, in 1877, Mrs. Cheney was greatly delighted with Rauch's work, and conceived the idea of bringing it to the attention of her countrymen. Soon after her return home, she was glad to learn that an exhaustive life of the sculptor was being published by Eggers; and during a later visit she obtained the permission of this author to make a free use of his material for the shorter book she wished to prepare. It was not until a dozen years later that the fifth and final volume of this monumental German work appeared, so that this literary undertaking occupied her at intervals during a long period, and demanded a large share of her time and labor. She makes no claim to originality, although she added to her account of 25 Rauch a chapter on Queen Louise of Prussia, who, of course, is less well known in this country than in Germany. This very interesting book, containing reproductions of some of Rauch's best works, was at last published by Lee & Shepard in 1893. Mrs. Cheney had an enthusiastic love for both France and Italy, with their art, their language, and their literature. Italy appealed to her especially, as it must to all artistic natures. And it seems only natural and fitting, if we consider her breadth of view and nobility of character, that the two great Italian masters whom she most admired were Dante and Michel Angelo. It is one of my great privileges to have read almost the whole of Dante's Divina Commedia with Mrs. Cheney in the original; and I am now the proud possessor of the old-fashioned, three-volume edition from which she used to read at that time. I think she revered Michel Angelo more than any other Italian artist. There was something in his rugged strength and grandeur that peculiarly appealed to her. There was hardly one of his works, either in sculpture or painting, of which she did not possess some good photograph or reproduction. She also greatly admired his poetry, which, as those of us know who have read it in the original, has the same qualities of rude, concentrated power that characterize his art work. Again I count it as a great privilege to have read almost all of Michel Angelo's verse with Mrs. Cheney, and to have assisted her in the preparation of her little book of selections from his poems. This is preceded by an excellent little introduction by her on Michel Angelo, and contains the Italian text of the selected poems, with an English translation opposite each. These translations are from different sources, some of them being the familiar versions of Wordsworth, Symonds, Hartford, etc., while others were new translations made by different friends especially for this book. Among the latter were a number of Mrs. Cheney's own translations, and in conclusion I am going to read to you one of these,—a sonnet to Dante:— "From heaven he came, a mortal then; And hell's just path and mercy's highway trod, Living, returned to look upon his God, And give his holy light to us again: A shining star, that with its brilliant rays Illumed in evil times the nest where I was born. As guerdon fit for him, this wicked earth I scorn: 26 God, his creator, him alone repays. I speak of Dante; for alas! ill known His labors are by that foul mob ingrate, Whose honors fail but to the just alone. Would I were he! for, born to such a fate, His bitter exile, and his courage shown, I would not change for earth's most happy state." Miss Channing then said:-- - I also bring you a message from a very dear friend of Mrs. Cheney's, who is with us in spirit, although she could not be here in the flesh. It is especially fitting that we should have a word from Miss Anna Q. T. Parsons, because she was the first honorary member of the New England Women's Club. For many years it had been Mrs. Cheney's custom to visit this friend every week, often two or three times in the week, and we felt that this occasion could not be complete without some direct word from her. Miss Parsons has been a shut-in invalid for a good deal more than half a century, and now is in her ninety-second year, very feeble, quite deaf, and almost blind. The other day she sent me this beautiful letter, without intending, however, that it should be read to you in its present form. But I feel sure that you will be grateful to me for giving you her thoughts just as she wrote them. She had recently asked me whether the portrait of Mrs. Cheney's daughter Margaret, by George Fuller, was to be here on this occasion. So she begins as follows:-- LETTER FROM MISS PARSONS I trust you found the lovely picture of Margaret is to be at the memorial service, as companion to the early picture of Mrs. Cheney, for the two lives were so inwoven that neither is complete alone. They elucidate each other. No one really knew Mrs. Cheney who did not recognize her motherhood. From the time of Daisy's babyhood it was never what was easiest for the moment, but what was best for the child's future, that was considered; and, as Margaret expanded and developed,-- different as they were by temperament,-- the accord strengthen and deepened with ever-increasing and mutual confidence, respect, and helpfulness. How beautifully equipped for this life the dear child seemed, when she so suddenly 27 left us! But, with all her others well in hand, she was also well equipped for whatever the new environment might bring. We can never forget how wonderfully the mother met that great change in her outward life; but the child never ceased to be a living reality, ever present to the mother's heart and thought, and how blessed must be their reunion! Noble and just and true as are the many words spoken of our friend; I think we all have felt that the innermost has not been said. There was something subtler, finer, deeper, more all-relating than can be put into words. Her religion was her life. She had that "listening receptivity" which we all need, to enable us to breathe in the spiritual atmosphere which envelops us, but which the most of us lack power to inhale; and the heavenly influences flowed through her less adulterated by the personal equation than with most. Her convictions were strong and clear, and she did not hesitate to speak words of wise counsel, often mingled with tender sympathy; and the two do not always go hand in hand. May inspiration come to you and all! Your invisible audience will be numerous. LETTER FROM COLONEL HIGGINSON Colonel T. W. Higginson, who was unable to be present, sent the following:-- It happened to me more than half a century ago to notice near me, during the intervals of some musical concert in Boston, a young girl of very noticeable looks whom I had not before happened to meet. She was a brunette, had a great deal of rich black hair, with large dark eyes, and was talking eagerly between the intervals of the music with some male companion. Inquiring her name of a cousin whom I was escorting, I was told that it was a Miss Littlehale and that she was considered uncommonly clever. Some years later I heard of her engagement and marriage to Seth Cheney, an artist then having great popularity through his crayon portraits; and after his early death I was brought into acquaintance with her in various reforms and charitable enterprises. Whenever thus engaged, she came surely to the front, not by pushing, but by the gravitation of steady leadership. She was connected with several large enterprises, especially the New England Hospital for Women and 28 Children, and had to pay the penalty of women, who were at that period little trained in such work, of being sometimes charged with exercising too much authority. When at last I became more closely connected with her as a fellow-officer of the new-born Free Religious Association in May, 1867, we were both placed among its officers, she as a director and I as a vice-president, and we were from that moment until her death fellow-officers of that society. During all that earlier portion of this intercourse we were under the leadership of that rare man, the Rev. Octavius Frothingham, who more than any other I have known combined the qualities of the high-bred gentleman with those of the social reformer. The organization had a great influence in bringing on the freedom of thought and the co-operation of religious denominations which has now made itself so notable,-- notably enough, indeed, to have superseded in a degree the intellectual prominence of the Free Religious Association, although it still holds its own and does good work. During all this long period there was never a moment when Mrs. Cheney pushed herself forward in any obtrusive fashion, while there never was a moment where her place could have been filled. Not equalling the ablest of the early woman leaders, like Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody, in extent of early training, she was equalled by no other in a certain clearness of mind and equilibrium of judgement, so that, when any special point of policy or action came up, I know that I for one always found myself waiting to hear her opinion before forming my own; and I observed this same habit to prevail in other minds. Her life was further tested in its womanly aspects by the illness and death of her daughter, a young girl of great attractiveness and unusually fine and noble bearing, whose early withdrawal from their happy home circle was as great a blow as a woman could be called upon to bear. Mrs. Cheney took it with unbroken strength, and pleased herself in later years by creating appliances, under her daughter's name, for the women's department in the Institute of Technology. By this arrangement and by the provisions of her will she carried on up to the latest point that singularly even tone of womanly usefulness which had marked her life. 29 LETTER FROM MISS SPRAGUE. Miss Julia A. Sprague, Historian of the New England Women's Club, who was obliged to leave the memorial meeting before speaking, writes:-- As I could not pay my brief tribute to Mrs. Cheney at the memorial meeting, I have been asked to send my intended remarks. I knew that her talents and her work in various spheres would be fully appreciated by others, therefore I wished simply to speak of her personally. I commenced my school-days with her in the small school she mentions in her autobiography, kept by the sisters of Pemberton. Then followed the separation incident to city living and residence removals. I heard of her often, but we did not come into the same circle of activity until in the '60's. From that time we were friends, the New England Woman's Club being the occasion for frequent meetings. Friendship ripened; and, after our removal (I include here my companion of forty years, Dr. M. E. Zakrzewska) to Forest Hill Street, we were near neighbors as well as intimate friends. I wish I could express to you the impression which her house and garden made upon me. I never turned into the driveway leading up to the modest house but I felt her influence upon me. Do not think I exaggerate my feelings. I knew, when I opened that door, what a glance from the eyes and smile from the lips were awaiting me; and, if she were not in deep sorrow, I always received them. The front room where she sat was to me full of her presence. It was unlike the rooms of other persons: it was artistic, but not made so by intention. It was harmonious. There were portraits, the work of her husband's hands, a few other pictures, a few busts, but nothing pretentious. Her spirit so filled the room that, if she was momentarily absent, I hardly knew it. There was a graciousness of demeanor which I have never seen so marked as in her when receiving friends, yet it seemed to flow naturally as if the friends incited it, so simple was the action. Her garden seemed unique, not attracting the eyes of the careless passer, but abundant in bloom from early March to early December. I have picked there the first snowdrops and the last chrysanthemums. The flowers in their irregular beds were always at my service. When she could, she would go down the rather steep steps to gather them 30 with me, and her gift was the more valuable when she selected the bouquet. The first spring flowers she always pointed out to me, or, if I could not come to her, she would bring, in loose condition, snowdrops, crocuses, violets, for me to arrange the slender, weak- stemmed blossoms. Her parlor had another character: it was large, with rather dim light. Before Margaret's death, it was like other parlors. Afterwards I always went alone into the room, if possible, and not by the nearer door. In one corner of the sitting-room there was an entrance to the parlor by a small passage, screened by a simple portière. I always used this way. There in the middle of the large room, near the centre table, stood on easels Mr. Cheney's portrait, half-size, and by its side Margaret's nearly full-length one. I felt as if it were a shrine. Before them on the table were always fresh flowers placed. This never failed, although Margaret had been dead for over twenty years. To me the parlor was almost sacred. These portraits were not hung up on the walls, coldly away by themselves, but greeted you as you entered. You felt the wife and the mother had them constantly in her heart. When the news of her death reached me in my present home, I exclaimed to a young friend who did not know Mrs. Cheney, "The glory and the beauty have gone out of my life." She responded, "Think of the glory and the beauty that have come into hers." But I suppose we are all selfish; and for the time I could not think of her gain, but only of my loss. My feeling at the last gathering in her house I expressed to one stronger than I: "I cannot conceive of this world with no Mrs. Cheney in it." His comforting reply to my letter calmed me in some degree, or at least made me submissive to what we know is inevitable. LETTER FROM MRS. SEVERANCE. Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, first president of the club in 1867, wrote from Los Angeles, California: -- It is well for me to be remembered thus by you, when you gather to do honor to the memory of our beloved friend and member, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney. 31 She was so much to us all in her daily helpfulness, her rare sincerity, her cordial fellowship. I have especial reason to feel all this deeply, even in the years before we knew her in our club. In the hospital beginnings, in the Sanitary Commission, the Freedmen's Bureau, and in the committee work of the Free Religious Organization, she was a wise helper, always at her post, and with rare judgment in the matters on hand. In the effort for the establishment of the New England Women's Hospital and on the Free Religious Committee I met her intimately, and learned her value as friend and inspirer, as you, dear members, have learned it through your long years of comradeship. She welcomed warmly the new departure in fellowship, on neutral lines, as it came to us in the club idea, and was an earnest co-worker from the early discussion of it in the houses of sympathetic women, as your club records show, although only in outline, until you were duly organized; since which your faithful secretary, Miss Lucia Peabody, and your able historian, Miss Julia A. Sprague, have carried on the record through all the later years. And that record is a noble tribute to her in itself. Her works do follow her, and will prove an incentive to all who have come within the sphere of her influence and example. And these do "rise up and call her blessed." Sweet, noble, lovable woman! To how many homes her loss will be a personal one! but the memory of her will be a perpetual blessing, an heirloom to children's children. LETTER FROM MISS ADAMS. Miss Sarah H. Adams sent the following appreciative word:-- I regret that I cannot attend the meeting held in memory of my friend, Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney. Let me, at least, express my appreciation of her unusual worth and of her distinguished ability. I knew her well from her girlhood, and was early stimulated by her soul-stirring response to every noble thought or brave human endeavor. As her years increased, I became aware that she possessed rare virtues -- loyalty, magnanimity, and intellectual integrity. She found pure joy in the achievements of others, wholly aside from any reference to or comparison with her own. Of heroic mould, she had also the courage of a martyr, but, being 32 "rich in saving common sense," taught herself and others not to squander usefulness. While she reverenced Emerson, Margaret Fuller and Theodore Parker were her chosen teachers, and she never questioned their inspiration. No form of worldliness seems ever to have laid siege to her high soul. Love enthralled her; and friendship, after her terrible griefs, made her life serene and happy to the end. What better exemplar for us all than Ednah Cheney? LETTER FROM MISS GOULD. Miss Elizabeth Porter Gould wrote:— I give grateful thanks that I was privileged to have known her. My first intelligent glimpse into her large soul was at the Concord School of Philosophy in 1885, when she gave us students there some fruits of the thought she had gleaned in her fruitful studies. This, as we all know, was bounded by a large horizon. Her caution, her good judgment, her charity in the face of limitation or ignorance, were noticeable when she was the presiding officer on any occasion. LETTER FROM MRS. McKAY. Mrs. Martha Nicholson McKay, of Indianapolis, wrote:— She had characteristics rare in a reformer, such calmness and a judicial quality of mind that could calm the troubled waters, and to use her own words, once spoken to me, "I feel that in our meetings I have often saved the day." How steadfast she was in her devotion to the colored people! The interest and the loyalty shown in her girlhood never wavered. In her last letter to me written in regard to the naming of a new school building for Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, she wrote, "I feel that our very existence as a nation depends upon our justice to the colored race." In the same letter she said, "My days of free travelling are over." She could no longer venture to go alone, but there was no repining, 33 only such sweet faith and cheerfulness that the very memory of it sustains her friends. So appreciative of all that is beautiful in life, so sympathetic with the best in art and music, she was yet so philosophical, so hospitable to all that was new, especially in science; and with all these gifts she was so singularly modest. Remembering all this, and her gracious and beautiful presence, we cannot but feel that we shall not look upon her like again. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT BUMSTEAD. President Horace Bumstead, of Atlanta University, said:— Those of you who have ever seen any of Mrs. Cheney's letters or manuscripts must have noticed this peculiarity in her handwriting,— that she seemed unable to write straight across the page, the lines always slanted upward from left to right. They say that handwriting is a revelation of character, and I have liked to think of this peculiarity of Mrs. Cheney's handwriting as an index of the ascending and aspiring quality of her soul. She was always reaching out for higher and better things for herself and for others. As for herself, she rose above the possible temptation to lead a life of ease and self-gratification, and grasped the higher blessedness to be found in the service of mankind. With her love of art and literature and philosophy, and with ample means, how easy it would have been for her, after the death of her husband so soon following her marriage, to have yielded to the allurements of a comparatively selfish life. Possibly she had some such temptation in mind when she quoted in her "Reminiscences" the lines of Mrs. Hooper:— "I slept, and dreamed that life was beauty; I woke, and found that life was duty." Indeed, she went so far as to give to her friend Dr. Zakrzewska the credit of arousing her from the lethargy of her widowhood sorrow to the claims of duty. I cannot but think, however, that, if Dr. Zakrzewska had not done it, she would soon have aroused herself; for it was not in the nature of her spirit to have remained long on the low plane of a selfish life. She might be rising to higher and better things. And so she became a helper of others in their upward striving 34 and struggling. She sought to bring about an enlargement of the share which women might take in the political, social, and economic life of the nation, she helped to provide more adequate and suitable hospital facilities for women and children; and, when the millions of slaves in our land became freemen, she aided the great work of their education and uplifting by the never-tiring use of her voice and pen and purse. Moreover, she had a sublime faith in the possibilities of higher and better things for all mankind. Especially was this true as regards to education of the negro. She would open to him all the avenues of learning and culture that were open to other people, and bid him enter, each according to his individual capacity, and strive for the highest attainment. She failed to see anything incongruous between a dark skin and the finest culture. I remember that some years ago I printed a little volume of illustrations of Atlanta University, -its building, grounds, and varied equipment,- and accompanied the pictures with a series of quotations from some of the poets and philosophers, which were in a way an interpretation of the inner spirit and ideals of the institution. Before the book was printed, a friend who saw the proofs advised the omission of the quotations, lest they should seem to some to connect the negro with a realm of thought and a kind of education for which he was not fitted. This advice I ventured to disregard, and later, after the book was printed, a friend told me that Mrs. Cheney, who had seen a copy of it, had said that the quotations in it had greatly increased her respect for Atlanta University. Thus I found vindication and comfort. And to how many, many lives has she brought similar comfort and strength which even to-day are helping them to do their work better! In these lives she still lives on earth, and in the better world she still lives in her own glorified personality. Could this double immortality be better expressed than in her own translation of these two epitaphs of Michel Angelo's, with which I will close? - "They do believe me dead,- I who still shed Delight on all the world, living in thousand souls In breasts of lovers true. No death controls, Taking one soul alone. I am not dead. "I was Cechino, now divine I live: Short time the world I had, but heaven now is mine. For such a fair exchange, to Death I praise assign, Who many dead, but me brought forth alive." 1876 Dear Mrs. Stone, I came in this morning hoping to let you about the enclosed request of Mr. Potter’s. Will you say a few words for us - or if you cannot will you suggest some one else. Much as I hate to do it - I shall say a few words on this subject which seems so very important to me. I also think it very important to the women cause to show that they are not always priest ridden &c. I answered Mr. P. that I would try to [find?] a good woman speaker & let him know. I would rather have you than any one - Could you not speak of the subject as affecting Temperance - showing how lager bier saloons &c tempt young men. Just drop me a postal with your decision - Yours very truly E D Cheney [*Ednah Cheney*] C [*You will be interested in this letter from dear Mrs. Cheney. Please save it for me. She had mentioned, during a call at the office, that she was unable nowadays to get any venison; & Papa went down to the market & found some, & sent her a piece.*] Forest Hill Street, Jamaica Plain. Feby 27, 1903. Dear Mr. Blackwell - I had not thought of you as like the President a famous hunter, and was much surprised at your gift of the rich slice of venison which I had not seen of the kind for many a year. I thank you very much for it and set aside my dinner to enjoy it. I was thinking of you that very morning, with out suspecting the kind intentions which compel you to my door. (I was sorry you did not enter.) I was reading old letters (the work of the old and useless) of mine written to a friend from Gloucester and I spoke of Mr. Charles P. [Ho??y] and he told me that he has just been at an anti-slavery meeting and heard a young lady speak. He was charmed with her appearance and her speech and felt sure she would do great work. She was Miss Lucy Stone. It was something like the feeling we shall have when the past is coming again into the present. She was then about twenty-two years old I think in 1848. What times those were, we were alive- burning with indignation and zeal. I suppose all those noble thoughts and words have ripened into deeds and we must not think they were lost, when we admire the apple blossoms in May. Then seems a long dreary time and many little green twigs dropping with worms before the grand harvest of rosy apples - but one comes surely from the other. Thanking you for your kind remembrance and good cheer. Yours very truly Ednah D. Cheney E.D. Cheney Historical March 29, 1943-statement to Board by Mrs. Paul Dudley Dean "Eighty years ago this month, in March 1863, the New England Hospital for Women and Children was incorporated--through it started the year before--by Dr. Zakrzewska, Miss Lucy Goddard, and Mrs. Edhah Dow Cheney. Just seventy-five years ago these same women were the founders of the New England Women's Club which a few days ago celebrated its seventy-fifth anniversary. Attending this I was interested to hear their tribute to these women for whom our Out-Patient Building, Surgical Building, and House for Nurses were respectively named. As these same women as members of the New England Women's Club were instrumental in establishing the Women's Educational and Industrial Union where we are now holding a Board meeting, and urged the starting of a school providing college preparation for women which resulted in the Girls' Latin School where I studied for six years, I felt indeed how influential and how remarkable our predecessors were." --------------- June 1, 1943 Board Meeting. Showing the growth of the Hospital services, Mrs. Dean gave these figures: In 1862 there were 118 adults admitted and 45 infants born. In 1942, there were 5369 adults admitted and 1,591 infants born. Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.