the treatment of “talent.”—visits to new england and to the west.—my mother’s seventieth birthday.—the papeterie club.—elisabeth stewart phelps ward.—thomas nelson page.
in the ’nineties the women’s clubs were beginning to offer a field for lecturers. after reading a paper before my own club in plainfield i was emboldened to enter this, and during twenty-five years made lecture trips to new england and the middle west, as well as to near-by points. “the art of conversation,” and “personal reminiscences of distinguished people” were among my most popular talks.
boston was my mother’s home and also a great center of club activity. hence i was glad to give many talks in new england, combining them with visits to her delightful home at 241 beacon street. on one of these trips i attended an authors’ reading where the name of elizabeth stewart phelps ward was on the program. she duly took her part, but we learned afterward that she had told the chairman she might not feel like speaking. “when it is my turn, do not announce me unless i spring up and come forward.” as mrs. ward was sitting behind the chairman, the latter had some anxious moments before the author of “gates ajar” decided to “spring up.”
if not the first to speak on the subject of manners, i was a pioneer in the field. a friend surprised me by saying that my talks at schools had become the fashion in new york. a look at my engagement-book showed that she was right.
to talk to young girls is a great pleasure. we always seemed to understand one another perfectly; i interspersed my subject with anecdotes and with bits of fun which they cordially appreciated. my aim was to set before them the essentials of good nature rather than the formalism of mere etiquette.
a speaker on manners is confronted with many difficulties. she must not speak of elementary details as if her hearers were ignorant of them, yet she must enter somewhat into particulars. i thought it perfectly safe to speak of gum-chewing in public as an odious custom, permissible only to football players. alas! one of my hearers always chewed gum while traveling, to avoid car-sickness!
i often asked the principals whether there were any special points they wished mentioned. one lady requested me to speak of mimicry, as she had a pupil much given to it. i willingly did so, quoting from miss edgeworth’s story of “the mimic.” unfortunately the girl for whom the admonition was especially intended was not feeling well. either the other girls recognized the culprit or the weight of her own guilt overwhelmed her. i have a dim vision of a youthful figure reclining in an anteroom. i was never asked to speak in that school again!
if i had realized all the pitfalls lurking in the path of the speaker on manners, i should have embarked upon it with a less cheerful heart. but in all professions we learn by doing. to be “the missionary of good manners” has been a pleasure. the principals have been kind and appreciative hostesses, and i have been truly glad to visit a great number of schools which afforded attractive homes as well as excellent educational advantages to the bright-faced, happy young girls of our country. it has been a privilege to see so much of the flower of young american womanhood.
ruth mcenery stewart has described in her inimitable way the treatment of the woman speaker in early days. many of her experiences were also mine. she apparently preferred to stay with private families, and i certainly did. the cold isolation of a hotel in a small country town, the depressing furniture of the bedroom, the unappetizing menu and service of the dining-room, the chattering drummers in the distance, these were not at all to my taste.
as a guest in a private house one incurs additional fatigue, but this is more than compensated for by the pleasure of meeting and learning to know your fellow-men and women. is there a little desire for incense in all this? it may be, but there is also a genuine liking for one’s kind. to get a peep into the lives and thoughts of others can hardly fail to be interesting. your material comforts are also much better attended to in the nest of the average clubwoman than in the leading hotel of the small town. the former gives you the best she has; she does everything in her power to make you comfortable under her roof. the chief danger is that of killing you with kindness by putting you on exhibition through unduly long hours.
to be considered as a being apart is flattering, even though fatiguing. that you are like other women, capable of physical weariness, does not always occur to your kind entertainers. to find that you are to be the chief guest at a large luncheon given in your honor, just preceding your address, is disturbing. at such moments i sympathize with mrs. deland’s desire for the barbaric solitude of the hotel bedroom. again, at the end of an hour, when you’ve done your best to entertain the audience, you would almost prefer not to shake hands with a couple of hundred persons.
still, it is a pleasure to meet your audience and to hear them say the lecture interested them. you look as animated as you can and try to vary the expression of your voice when you say for the hundredth time, “i’m glad you liked it.” for you are genuinely glad—of that there is no doubt.
i learned ultimately to ask for a time of absolute quiet before speaking. this is more difficult to procure than the uninitiated suppose. it is a maxim with the average clubwoman that the “talent” must be on hand in very good season. some clubs who are very secret about their affairs put you in a remote waiting-room which may or may not be warm. others, remembering that you also are a clubwoman and likely to sympathize in their doings, give you a comfortable chair on the platform. as i am thoroughly in sympathy with the club idea and spirit, i like to hear the reports, provided they are not too long. at one enthusiastic club i sat during an hour or more while they thoroughly and conscientiously amended their constitution.
for these reasons the lecturer sometimes weakly desires to delay her coming. she has a subconscious feeling that the program proper cannot begin until she gets there, and that therefore she could take a later train. this proves to be impossible, because of the necessity of personally meeting and guiding the “talent” (who might have the wandering tendencies characteristic of genius) to the right hall. the escort, being herself a member of the club, cannot, without sin, lose any crumb of the afternoon’s performance.
to be obliged to await your turn, in a very cold hall, while another speaker gives an address with stereoscopic illustrations, is not enlivening to the spirits. in spite of the assurance that the first talk will be very brief, you have a dreadful foreknowledge that it will not be. you grow more and more depressed as he goes on and on, for you know full well that your audience will be already wearying before you begin. those who have no sense of the passage of time should not be expected to divide the program with others. thomas nelson page, when reading his own stories, is as genial and delightful as they are. we went to hear him speak on the literature of the south with the pleasantest anticipations. richard watson gilder and sister maud were also to make addresses—or so we hoped. but as mr. page went on and on, these hopes faded away. in his amiable desire to do justice to all the writers of his section of the country, he forgot the limitations of time and space. a gentleman in my vicinity became actually savage in his impatience and was with difficulty restrained from violence by his wife. mr. page must have spoken for two hours—or so it seemed,—the other speakers’ time being reduced to a few minutes. when we met him next day and complimented him on his address, he na?vely replied, “i could have done better if i could have had more time!”
mr. page is by no means the only person whom i have heard offend in this way. hence the warning-bell of women’s conventions is an excellent institution. the local talent must sometimes be reckoned with. i am very fond of music, but, in my opinion, it is a mistake to present a mixed program, consisting half of concert and half of lecture, to a club audience. such an occasion is of a mongrel order. a single song may pleasantly preface the literary exercises, but this it is difficult to have.
in the midst of a series of earnest talks on schools as social centers, or on votes for women, to have your train of thought suddenly interrupted by operatic quavers from the local soprano, with accompanying flower presentation, is disturbing.
marion crawford was a delightful speaker. it once happened, when we were in boston, that several of us were to speak on the same day.
“five of the family are going to make the platform creak to-night!” exclaimed crawford.
at a lecture course which i arranged in plainfield he was the great attraction. the talk was given in a hall of pleasant size, not too large to permit a certain intimacy between speaker and audience. crawford was at his best. feeling, as a lecturer so quickly does, the interest and sympathy of his hearers, he was as genial and delightful as if he had been talking to half a dozen of us in a parlor. among those that surrounded him after the address was an enthusiastic lady who declared him to be the equal of thackeray. the dear fellow deprecated this praise, yet he clearly liked it, as who would not?
another relative, who wanted him to speak at her house, for a reduced price, did not secure him.
she wished, after the fashion of women, to give her guests a real treat—ice-cream and flowers as well as an address from crawford—cutting down his fee to pay for the rest of the entertainment. i regret to say that her point of view is quite common among clubwomen. the secretary will na?vely ask you to come for a low price because the ladies wish to give ice-cream to their guests. it does not seem to occur to them that in this case it is the lecturer who pays for the refreshments!
it is—or was, for we will hope the bad custom is dying away—common for clubs to exact, whenever they can, cut prices from their women speakers, on the plea of their small means—and then end up the year with some very expensive man whose fee is not subject to curtailment.
after my mother reached the age of seventy her birthday was always celebrated by family and friends as a joyous occasion. the house was transformed into a veritable bower of flowers, the fitting expression of the beautiful affection by which she was surrounded.
a lady from the west was invited, with her son, to one of these receptions. she endeavored to impress upon him, beforehand, the importance of the occasion when “we shall see all the élite of boston.” the day was rainy, and in the confusion of many umbrellas, that of the western couple was mislaid.
“ah, mother, the élite got the better of us that time!” said her son.
in 1893 we all greatly enjoyed the chicago world’s fair, in spite of the fact that i had my pocket picked and that my oldest son had a very serious time with his eyes, which were half-blinded by the glare. my mother was so deeply interested in it, and especially in the parliaments connected with it, that she forgot about her lame knee. when she returned home this took its revenge, depressing her usually buoyant spirits.
sister maud, remembering our mother’s perennial interest in women’s clubs, invented the “papeterie” as a restorative.
its object, as the name implies, was an exchange of paper-covered novels. the members took these home to read, giving a report at the following meeting. we occasionally had musical, artistic, and dramatic programs. our most serious undertaking was the writing of a novel, to which each member contributed a chapter. it was full of dash and adventure, but remains buried in the archives of the club. our great modesty forbade the seeking of a publisher. we had a great deal of delightful fun and nonsense at our meetings. our mother, with her wit and gaiety, was the moving spirit of the little club. she seldom missed a meeting, but when she did we were like salt that has lost its savor. the merriment which came so easily in her presence, faded and died away!
some extracts from my minutes as recording secretary are given below, to show as far as may be the spirit of our meetings. their object was to amuse the company rather than to preserve a strictly veracious record of our doings.
we had no regular fees and dues in the papeterie, save occasional fines of five cents for some offense, real or imaginary, and assessments for postage or for a new record-book. hence jests about our treasurer were among our stock jokes. she was christened “butterfly,” owing to her supposed fondness for society.
the first meeting of the renowned papeterie club for the season of 1910 was held august 9th, at the house of our president, who occupied the chair, as usual. she has wielded the gavel, our gavel, with her accustomed dexterity and grace, rebuking frivolous members with august raps on the table.
the annual report of the rec. sec. was read. the chair suggested in a voice of authority that the proper thing be done by this report, and all voted to do the proper thing. what this was no one mentioned.
the treasurer’s report was a revelation in high finance, as follows:
oct. 19th, 1908. there were five cents—these five cents to be known hereafter as the lost chord.
in july, 1909, we began with this lost chord—which vanished, leaving in its place $5.61 in october of that year.
there were no expenses except $1.20 for postal cards. apparently there were no receipts, but somehow the $5.61 has now become $7.36. the third degree was here mercilessly applied to our butterfly treasurer, also to the minutes, with the result that it was found $2.75 had been received for special fines. the papeterie therefore voted not to burn the treasurer at the stake as a witch. we should have been under this sad necessity had not this increase in our treasure been satisfactorily accounted for.
the election passed off with its accustomed serenity. the club understands so well how to re-elect the old officers, we could really do this in our sleep. the old board is unanimously murmured into the offices which they will never leave, no never, while life lasts. the only new feature of the election was that our treasurer, mrs. lyman josephs, nobly consented to act as cor. sec. pro tem. (in the absence of mrs. manson smith), as well as our eternal and brilliant treasurer. and yet she has been called a butterfly.
florence h. hall,
rec. sec.
in addition to the usual officers of a club, the papeterie had a “troubadour” (our musical member), an “archiviste” in charge of the archives, and a “penologist.” our penal code was in the custody of the latter. we had a great deal of fun over the code—but i do not remember the actual infliction of any punishment, except fines of five cents.
the meeting of september 27, 1910, was the last but one held before my mother’s death, in october. mrs. william hunter birckhead, who succeeded me as recording secretary, gave us an interesting account of the “passion play” at oberammergau, and my mother told us of newport in the old days. it was so sadly deserted after the revolution that only one lady possessed a diamond ring!
