CHAPTER XV.

–––––– AN AMERICAN WOMAN.

The desire of knowledge is a powerful instinct of the soul, as inherent in woman as in man.... It was designed to be gratified, all the avenues of her soul are open for its gratification. Her every sense is as perfect as man’s: her hand is as delicate in its touch, her ear as acute in hearing, her eye the same in its wonderful mechanism, her brain sends out the same two-fold telegraphic network. She is endowed with the same consciousness, the same power of perception. Every attribute of his soul is hers also. From her very organization she is manifestly formed for the pursuit of the same knowledge, for the attainment of the same virtue, for the unfolding of the same truth. Whatever aids man in the pursuit of any one of these objects must aid her also. Let woman then reject the philosophy of a narrow prejudice or of false custom, and trust implicitly to God’s glorious handwriting on every folded tissue of her body, on every tablet of her soul. Let her seek for the highest culture of brain and heart. Let her apply her talent to the highest use. In so doing will the harmony of her being be perfect. Brain and heart according well will make one music. All the bright intellections of the mind, all the beautiful affections of the heart will together form one perfect crystal around the pole of Truth.

From these words of hers it appears that Angeline Hall believed in a well-rounded life for women as well as for men; and to the best of her ability she lived up to her creed. Physically deficient herself, she heralded the advent of the American woman—the peer of Spartan mother, Roman matron or modern European dame. Her ideal could hardly be called “the new woman,” for she fulfilled the duties of wife and mother with the utmost devotion. Among college women she was a pioneer; and perhaps the best type of college woman corresponds to her ideal.

In person she was not remarkable—height about five feet three inches, weight with clothing about one hundred and twenty-three pounds. In middle life she was considerably bent over, more from years of toil than from physical weakness. Nervous strength was lacking; and early in life she lost her teeth. But her frame was well developed, her waist being as large as a Greek goddess’s, for she scorned the use of corsets. Her smooth skin was of fine stout texture. Her well-shaped head was adorned by thin curls of wonderfully fine, dark hair, which even at the time of death showed hardly a trace of white. Straight mouth, high forehead, strong brow, large straight nose, and beautiful brown eyes indicated a woman of great spiritual force.

She cared little for adornment, believing that the person is attractive if the soul is good. Timid in the face of physical danger, she was endowed with great moral courage and invincible resolution. She used to speak of “going along and doing something,” and of “doing a little every day.” Friends and relatives found in her a wise counsellor and fearless leader. She was gifted with intellect of a high order—an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, a good memory, excellent mathematical ability, and the capacity for mental labor. But her sense of duty controlled, and she devoted her talents to the service of others.

Unlike Lady Macbeth in other respects, she was suited to bear men-children. And, thanks to her true womanhood, she nursed them at the breast. There were no bottle babies in the Hall family. Tradition has it that she endured the pains of childbirth with unusual fortitude, hardly needing a physician. But this seeming strength was due in part to an unwise modesty.

With hardly enough strength for the duties of each day, she did work enough for two women through sheer force of will. It is not surprising then that she died, in the sixty-second year of her age, from a stroke of apoplexy. She was by no means apoplectic in appearance, being rather a pale person; but the blood-vessels of the brain were worn out and could no longer withstand the pressure. In the fall of 1881, after the death of her sister Mary and of Nellie Woodward, daughter of her sister Ruth, she was the victim of a serious sickness, which continued for six months or more. Friends thought she would die; but her sister Ruth came and took care of her, and saved her for ten more years of usefulness. She lived to see her youngest son through college, attended his Class Day, and died a few days after his graduation.

The motive power of her life was religious faith—a faith that outgrew all forms of superstition. Brought up to accept the narrow theology of her mother’s church, she became a Unitarian. The eldest son was sent regularly to the Unitarian Sunday School in Washington; but a quarrel arising in the church, she quietly withdrew, and thereafter assumed the whole responsibility of training her sons in Christian morals. Subsequently she took a keen interest in the Concord School of Philosophy; and, adopting her husband’s view, she looked to science for the regeneration of mankind. In this she was not altogether wise, for her own experience had proven that the advancement of knowledge depends upon a divine enthusiasm, which must be fed by a religion of some sort. Fortunately, she was possessed of a poetic soul, and she never lost religious feeling.

The following poem illustrates very well the faith of her later life:

TO SCIENCE.

I.

Friend of our race, O Science, strong and wise! Though thou wast scorned and wronged and sorely tried, Bound and imprisoned, racked and crucified, Thou dost in life invulnerable rise The glorious leader ’gainst our enemies. Thou art Truth’s champion for the domain wide Ye twain shall conquer fighting side by side. Knowledge and Freedom are thy great allies. Thus thou art strong, and able thou to cope With all thy enemies that yet remain. They fly already from the open plain, And climb, hard-pressed, far up the rugged slope. We hear thy bugle sound o’er land and sea And know that victory abides with thee.

II.

Because thou’st conquered all _one_ little world Thou never like the ancient king dost weep, But like the brave Ulysses, on the deep Dost launch thy bark, and, all its sails unfurled, Dost search for new worlds which may lie impearled By happy islands where the billows sleep; Or into sunless seas dost fearless sweep, Braving the tempest which is round thee hurled; Or, bolder still, mounting where far stars shine, From conquest unto conquest thou dost rise And hold’st dominion over realms divine, Where, clear defined unto thy piercing eyes, And fairer than Faith’s yearnful heart did ween Stretches the vastness of the great Unseen.

III.

E’en where thy sight doth fail thou givest not o’er, But still “beyond the red” thy spectraphone The ray invisible transforms to tone, Thus winning from the silence more and more; Wherein thou buildest new worlds from shore to shore With hills perpetual and with mountains lone; To music moving pond’rous stone on stone As unto Orpheus’ lyre they moved of yore. Still, Science, lightning-winged! thy way pursue! Beyond the farthest sweep of farthest sun, Beyond the music of the sounding spheres Which chant the measures of the months and years, Toward realms that e’en to daring Thought are new Still let thy flying feet unwearied run.

IV.

O, friend of Faith! let her not deem thee foe, Though thou dost drive her from the Paradise To which she clings with backward turning eyes, Thou art her angel still, and biddest her go To wider lands where the great rivers flow, And broad and green many a valley lies, Where high and grand th’ eternal mountains rise, And oceans fathomless surge to and fro. Thus thou dost teach her that God’s true and real, Fairer and grander than her dreams _must_ be; Till she shall leave the realm of the Ideal To follow Truth throughout the world with thee, Through earth and sea and up beyond the sun Until the mystery of God is won.

Whatever the literary defects, these are noble sonnets. But I had rather take my chances in a good Unitarian church than try to nourish the soul with such Platonic love of God. She disliked the Unitarian habit of clinging to church traditions and ancient forms of worship; but better these than the materialism of a scientific age.

Perhaps I do her an injustice. She was absolutely loyal to truth, not guilty of that shuffling attitude of modern theologians who have outgrown the superstition of Old Testament only to cling more tenaciously to the superstition of the New. In the Concord School of Philosophy, and later in her studies as a member of the Ladies’ Historical Society of Washington, she was searching for the new faith that should fulfil the old. It might be of interest here to introduce selections from some of her Historical Society essays, into the composition of which she entered with great earnestness. Written toward the close of life, they still retain the freshness and unspoiled enthusiasm of youth. One specimen must suffice:

In thinking of Galileo, and the office of the telescope, which is to give us increase of light, and of the increasing power of the larger and larger lenses, which widens our horizon to infinity, this constantly recurring thought comes to me: how shall we grow into the immensity that is opening before us? The principle of light pervades all space—it travels from star to star and makes known to us all objects on earth and in heaven. The great ether throbs and thrills with its burden to the remotest star as with a joy. But there is also an all-pervading force, so subtle that we know not yet how it passes through the illimitable space. But before it all worlds fall into divine order and harmony. It is gravitation. It imparts the power of one to all, and gathers from all for the one. What in the soul answers to these two principles is, first, also light or knowledge, by which all things are unveiled; the other which answers to gravitation, and before which all shall come into proper relations, and into the heavenly harmony, and by which we shall fill the heavens with ourselves, and ourselves with heaven, is love.

This is better than most philosophy. But after all, Angeline Hall gave herself to duty and not to philosophy—to the plain, monotonous work of home and neighborhood. Like the virtuous woman of Scripture, she supplied with her own hands the various family wants—cooked with great skill, canned abundance of fruit for winter, and supplied the table from day to day with plain, wholesome food. Would that she might have taught Bostonians to bake beans! If they would try her method, they would discover that a mutton bone is an excellent substitute for pork. Pork and lard she banished from her kitchen. Beef suet is, indeed, much cleaner. The chief article of diet was meat, for Mrs. Hall was no vegetarian, and the Georgetown markets supplied the best of Virginia beef and mutton. Like the virtuous woman of Scripture, she provided the family with warm clothing, and kept it in repair. A large part of her life was literally spent in mending clothes. She never relaxed the rigid economy of Cambridge days. She commonly needed but one servant, for she worked with her own hands and taught her sons to help her. The house was always substantially clean from roof to cellar. No corner was neglected. Nowhere on the whole premises was a bad smell tolerated.

While family wants were scrupulously attended to, she stretched forth a hand to the poor. The Civil War filled Washington with negroes, and for several winters Mrs. Hall helped to distribute supplies among them. In 1872 she was “Directress” of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth wards; and for a long time she was a member of a benevolent society in Georgetown, having charge of a section of the city near her residence. For the last fourteen years of her life, she visited the Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children in north Washington. Her poor colored neighbors regarded her with much esteem. She listened to their stories of distress, comforted them, advised them. The aged she admitted to her warm kitchen; and they went away, victuals in their baskets or coins in their hands, with the sense of having a friend in Mrs. Hall. Uncle Louis, said to be one hundred and fourteen years old, rewarded her with a grape-vine, which was planted by the dining room window. And “the Uncle Louis grape” was the best in the garden.

At the close of the Civil War she even undertook to redeem two fallen Irish women by taking them into her house to work. But their appetite for whiskey was too strong, and they would steal butter, barter it for liquor, and come home drunk. On one occasion one of these women took little Asaph along to visit the saloon; and there his mother found him, with the servant standing by joking with rough men, her dress in shreds.

Mrs. Hall had no time or strength for such charitable enterprises, and soon abandoned them. She was saved from most of the follies of philanthropy by the good sense of her husband, whom she rewarded with the devotion of a faithful wife. His studies and researches, almost from the first, were much too deep for her entire comprehension, but she was always enthusiastic about his work. In the introduction to his “_Observations and Orbits of the Satellites of Mars_,” Professor Hall chivalrously says:

In the spring of 1877, the approaching favorable opposition of the planet Mars attracted my attention, and the idea occurred to me of making a careful search with our large Clark refractor for a satellite of this planet. An examination of the literature of the planet showed, however, such a mass of observations of various kinds, made by the most experienced and skillful astronomers that the chance of finding a satellite appeared to be very slight, so that I might have abandoned the search had it not been for the encouragement of my wife.

In fact, Mrs. Hall was full of enthusiasm. Each night she sent her husband to the observatory supplied with a nourishing lunch, and each night she awaited developments with eager interest. I can well remember the excitement at home. There was a great secret in the house, and all the members of the family were drawn more closely together by mutual confidence.

The moral and intellectual training of her sons has already been referred to. Summer vacations were often spent with her sisters in Rodman, N.Y. Her mother, who reached the age of eighty years, died in the summer of 1878, when Mrs. Hall became the head of the Stickney family. Her sisters Mary and Elmina were childless. Ruth had six children, in whose welfare their Aunt Angeline took a lively interest. The three girls each spent a winter with her in Washington, and when, in the summer of 1881, Nellie was seized with a fatal illness, Aunt Angeline was present to care for her. Now and then Charlotte Ingalls, who had prospered in Wisconsin, would come on from the West, and the Stickney sisters would all be together. The last reunion occurred in the summer of 1891, a year previous to Angeline’s death. It was a goodly sight to see the sisters in one wagon, near the old home place; and when, at Elmina’s house, Angeline was bustling about attending to the needs of the united family, it was good to hear Charlotte exclaim, “Take care, old lady!” She was thirteen years older than Angeline, and seemed almost to belong to an earlier generation. She remembered her father well, and had no doubt acquired from him some of the ancient New Hampshire customs lost to her younger sisters. Certainly her exclamations of “Fiddlesticks,” and “Witch-cats,” were quaint and picturesque.

But it was Angeline who was really best versed in the family history. She had made a study of it, in all its branches, and could trace her descent from at least eleven worthy Englishmen, most of whom arrived in New England before 1650. She made excursions to various points in New England in search of relatives. At Belchertown, Mass., in 1884, she found her grandfather Cook’s first cousin, Mr. Thomas Sabin. He was then one hundred years old, and remembered how in boyhood he used to go skating with Elisha Cook.

How brief the history of America in the presence of such a man! I remember seeing an old New Englander, as late as 1900, who as a boy of eleven years had seen General Lafayette. It was a treat to hear him describe the courteous Frenchman, slight of stature, bent with age, but active and polite enough to alight from the stage-coach to shake hands with the people assembled to welcome him in the little village of Charlton, Mass.

Mrs. Hall had no time for travel. At the close of life she longed to visit Europe, but death intervened, and her days were spent in her native country. She passed two summers in the mountains of Virginia. In 1878, with her little son Percival, she accompanied her husband to Colorado, to observe the total eclipse of the sun. Three years before they had taken the whole family to visit her sister Charlotte’s people in Wisconsin.

It was through her family loyalty that she acquired the Adirondack habit. In the summer of 1882, after the severe sickness of the preceding winter, she was staying with a cousin’s son, a country doctor, in Washington County, N.Y. He proposed an outing in the invigorating air of the Adirondacks. And so, with her three youngest sons and the doctor’s family, she drove to Indian Lake, and camped there about a week. Her improvement was so marked that the next summer, accompanied by three sons and her sister Ruth, she drove into the wilderness from the West, camping a few days in a log cabin by the side of Piseco Lake. In 1885, setting out from Rodman again, she drove four hundred miles, passing north of the mountains to Paul Smith’s, and thence to Saranac Lake village, John Brown’s farm, Keene Valley, and Lake George, and returning by way of the Mohawk Valley. In 1888 she camped with the three youngest sons on Lower Saranac, and in 1890 she spent July and August at the summer school of Thomas Davidson, on the side of Mt. Hurricane. One day I escorted her and her friend Miss Sarah Waitt to the top of the mountain, four or five miles distant, and we spent the night on the summit before a blazing camp-fire. Two years later she was planning another Adirondack trip when death overtook her—at the house of her friend Mrs. Berrien, at North Andover, Mass., July 3, 1892.

Her poem “Heracles,” written towards the close of her career, fittingly describes her own herculean labors:

HERACLES.

I.

Genius of labor, mighty Heracles! Though bound by fate to do another’s will, Not basely, as a slave, dost thou fulfil The appointed task. The eye of God to please Thou seekest, and man to bless, and not thy ease. So to thy wearying toil thou addest still New labors, to redeem some soul from ill, Performing all thy generous mind conceives. From the sea-monster’s jaws thy arm did free, And from her chains, the fair Hesione. And when Alcestis, who her lord to save, Her life instead a sacrifice she gave, Then wast thou near with heart that never quailed, And o’er Death’s fearful form thy might prevailed.

II.

Because thou chosest virtue, when for thee Vice her alluring charms around thee spread, The gods, approving, smiled from overhead, And gave to thee thy shining panoply. Then wentest thou forth to certain victory. Nature obedient to thy will was led, Out rushed the rivers from their ancient bed And washed the filth of earth into the sea. When ’gainst thy foes thy arrows all were spent, Zeus stones instead, in whirling snow-cloud sent. When with sore heat oppressed, O wearied one! Thou thought’st to aim thy arrows at the sun, Then Helios sent his golden boat to thee To bear thee safely through the trackless sea.