Samantha at the World's Fair, Marietta Holley [most life changing books txt] 📗
- Author: Marietta Holley
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And Queen Victoria herself has sent over some things, amongst 'em them napkins of hern, spun and wove by her own hands.
What a lesson for snobbish young ladies, who would think it lowerin' to hem a napkin! What would they think to tackle 'em in the flax? And then there wuz a hat made by England's Queen, and gin to her grand-daughter; and there wuz six pictures painted by her, original sketches from nater. One view wuz from the Queen's own room at Balmoral.
And then the Princess of Wales sent a chair of carved walnut, upholstered with leather, all the work of her own hands.
What another lesson that is to our lazy, fashionable girls! And Princess Maud of Wales sent a embroidered piano stool. And Princess Louise—Miss Lorne that now is—and Princess Beatrice sent the work of their own brains and hands.
I guess queens have always made a practice of workin'.
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Why, I see there—and I could have wept when I seen it if I'd had the time—an elegant bedquilt made by poor Mary Queen of Scots. She sot the last stitches in it the day before her death.
What queer stitches them must have been—Agony and Remorse a-twistin' the thread in the needle.
Queen Victoria sent over some things.
And then there wuz a piece of embroidery by Queen Marie Antoinette. What queer stitches them must have been, if she could have seen the End!
And then there wuz a portrait of Maria de Medici, Queen of France, made by herself.
And then there wuz a Bible presented by Queen Anne to the Moravian Church of New York, and a Bible of Princess Christian's.
The fine needlework of the wimmen of Greece makes a splendid show. The Queen of Greece is at the head of their commission.
The Queen of Italy goes ahead of all the other monarchs; she shows her own private collection of lace handkerchiefs, and neckties, and mantillys, and so forth. And even her crown laces—them beautiful laces that droop down over her regal head-dress[Pg 284] when she sets with her crown on, and her sceptre held out in her hand.
The Queen of Belgium is at the head of their exposition. And the German commission is headed by a Princess.
Wall, you see from what I have said that there wuz a great variety of Queens a-showin' off in that buildin'; and as for Baronnesses, and Duchesses, and Ladies, etc., etc.—why, they wuz as common there as clover in a field of timothy. You felt real familiar with 'em.
The reception-room of Mrs. Palmer, the beautiful President of the Woman's Committee, is a fittin' room for the presidin' genius.
All along the walls below the ceilin' runs a design of roses, scattered and grouped with exquisite taste. Miss Agnes Pitman, of Cincinnati, decorated that room.
In Mrs. Palmer's office is a wonderful table donated by the wimmen of Pennsylvania.
In that table is cedar from Lebanon, oak from the yoke of Liberty Bell, oak from the good old ship Constitution, from Washington's headquarters at Valley Forge, and wood from other noted places.
And none of the woods wuz ever put to better use than now, to hold the records of woman's Aspirations and Success in 1893.
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The ceilin' of the New York room wuz designed by Dora Keith Wheeler, and is beautiful and effective. And the room is full of objects of beauty and use.
The gorgeous President's chair from Mexico is a sight; and so to me wuz the chair in the Kentucky room, three hundred years old, that used to be sot in by old Elder Brewster, of Plymouth.
Good old creeter! if he could have been moved offen that rock of hisen three hundred years ago, into this White City, he would have fell out of that chair in a fit—I most know he would.
And then there wuz a silk flag made by General Sheridan's mother when she wuz eighty years old, and a group of dolls dressed in costooms illustrating American history.
And there wuz a shirt of old Peter Stuyvesent's and a baby dress of De Witt Clinton's.
I never mistrusted that he wuz ever a baby till I seen that dress. I'd always thought on him as the first Governor of New York.
And speakin' of babys—why, I wuz jest a-lookin' at that dress when I met Miss Job Presley, of Loontown.
And I sez, almost the first thing, "Where is your baby?"
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And she sez, "It is in the Babys' Buildin'. I have got a check for her—one for her, and one for my umbrell." And she showed 'em to me.
"Wall," sez I, "that is a good, noble idee to rest mothers' tired arms; but it must make you feel queer."
And she said, as she put the checks back into her portmoney, "That it did make her feel queer as a dog."
Miss Job Presley.
Wall, there wuz a table from Pennsylvania, containin' more than two thousand pieces of native wood; and there wuz a Scotchwoman with her good old spinnin'-wheel, and a Welsh girl a-weavin' cloth.
And inventions of females of all kinds, from a toboggan slide, and a system of irrigation, and models of buildin's of all kinds, to a stock car.
Why, the very elevator you rode up to the ruff garden on wuz made by a woman.
And then there wuz cotton raised and ginned by wimmen of the South, and nets by the wimmen of New Jersey, and fruit raised by the wimmen of California—the m[Pg 287]ost beautiful fruit I ever sot my eyes on, and wine made by her, too.
(I could have wept when I see that, but presoom it wuz for sickness.)
And from Colorado there wuz tracin's of minin' surveys. Wimmen a-findin' out things hid in the bowels of the earth! O good land! the idee on't!
And engravin's and etchin's done by wimmen way back to 1581.
And in stamped leather, wall decoration, furniture, it wuz a sight to see the noble doin's of my sect; and a exhibit that done my soul good wuz from Belva Lockwood, admittin' wimmen to practise in the Supreme Court. That wuz better than leather work, though that is worthy, and wuz more elevatin' to my sect than the elevator.
The British exhibit is arranged splendidly to show off wimmen's noble work in charity, education, manafacture, art, literature, etc., and amongst their patents is one for a fire-escape, and one to extract gold from base metals. Both of these are good idees, as there can't anybody dispute.
Another exhibit there that appeals strong to the feelin' heart wuz Kate Marsdon's Siberian leper village.
She is a nurse of the Red Cross, and her heart ached with pity for them wretched[Pg 288] lepers, in their dretful lonely huts in the forests of Siberia.
She went herself to see their awful condition, and tried to help 'em; she raised money herself for horsepitals and nurses.
Relics of Kate Marsdon.
Here is a model of the village, with church, horsepital, schoolhouse, store, and cottages for them that are able to work.
Here is the saddle she wore durin' her long, dretful journey to Siberia, and the knife she carried, and some of the miserable, hard black bread she had to eat.
Here are letters to her from Queen Victoria, and the Empress of Russia.
But a Higher Power writ to her, writ on her heart, and went with her acrost the dark fields of snow and ice.
Wall, after lookin' at everything under the sun, from a Lion's Head, by Rosa Bonhuer, to a piece of bead-work by a Injun, and every queer and beautiful Japan thing you ever thought on, or ever didn't think on, and everything else under the sun, moon, and stars, that wuz ever made by a woman—and there is no end to 'em—we went up into the ruff garden, where, amidst flowers, and fountains, and fresh air, happy children wuz a-playin', with birds and butterflies a-flyin' about 'em over their heads.
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The birds couldn't git out, nor the children either, for up fifteen feet high a wire screen wuz stretched along, coverin' the hull beautiful garden. Nothin' could git in or out of it but the sweet air and the sunshine.
Oh, what a good idee! You could see that the Woman's Buildin' wuz full of beautiful, practical idees, from the ground floor to the very top; as you could see plain by this that the children wuz thought on and cared for, from the bottom to the top of this palace. Some say that wimmen soarin' out in art and business makes 'em hard and ontender; you can see that this is a plain falsehood jest by walkin' once through the Woman's Buildin'.
If ever wimmen soared out in art and business, and genius, and philanthropy, and education, and religion, she does here; and from the floor to the ruff is the highest signs of her tenderness for the children, and all weak and helpless ones.
Oh, what emotions I had in that buildin', and of what a immense size! Some of the time I got lost and by the side of myself, a-thinkin' such deep and high thoughts about the World's Fair, and wimmen, etc., and they wuz so fur-reachin', too; it wuz a sight.
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For I knew on that openin' day, when the hammer struck that marvellous golden nail, and this world of treasures opened at the signal—I knew that the echo of that blow wuzn't a-goin' to die out on Lake Michigan. I knew that at its echo old Prejudice, and Custom, and Might wuz a-goin' to skulk back and hide their hoary heads; and Young Progress, and Equality, and Right wuz a-goin' to advance and take their places.
Stiflin', encumberin' veils wuz a-goin' to fall from the sad eyes of the wimmen of the East. Chains wuz a-goin' to fall from the delicate wrists of the wimmen of the West.
I hailed that sound as helpin' forward the era of Love, Peace, goodwill to men and wimmen.
Yes, it wuz a happy hour for her who was once Smith, when man, in the shape of President Cleveland, pressed the button with his thumb. And woman, in the form of Bertha Honore Palmer, drove that nail home with a hammer.
Josiah thought it ort to been the other way. He sez, "That men wuz so used to hammer and nails;" and he sez, and stuck to it, that, "No woman livin' ever druv a nail home without splittin' her own nail in the effort, and bendin' the nail she driv sideways."
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But I sot him down in my mind as representin' Old Prejudice, and I did not dain a reply to him. Only I merely said—
"Wall, she did drive the nail in straight, and she clinched it solid with the golden words of her address."
Yes, Mrs. Palmer has stood up on a high mount durin' the hard years past since the Fair wuz thought on.
She has stood up so high that she could see things hid from them on the ground.
She could see over the hull world, and could see that, like little children of one family, the nations wuz all havin' their own separate work to do to help their Pa's and Ma's—their Pa Progress, and Grandpa Civilization, and their Ma and Grandma Love and Humanity.
She could see that some of the children wuz dark complexioned, and some lighter, and some kinder yeller favored, and some wuz big, and some wuz small.
They differed in looks and behavior, as every big family will, and she could see that they had their little squabbles together, a-quarrelin' among themselves over their possessions, their toys and their rights—they wuz jealous of each other, and greedy, as children will be; and they had their perplexities, and their dee[Pg 292]p troubles, and their vexations, as children must have in this world, and some wuz fractious, and some wuz balky, and some wuz good dispositioned, and some wuz cross and mean, and had to be spanked more or less.
But she could see from her sightly place that the hull of the children wuz a-movin' on, some slower and some faster, movin' on, and a-gittin' into line, and a-fallin' into step, to the music of the future.
She could see, and she has
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