Chapter 11

To David G. Croly, her husband, long a newspaper man of admitted power and executive force, Mrs. Croly was a constant help, as he too was to her. From him she learned not a little of her topical discernment and technical knack. He was never afraid of ability in whomever found, and he rejoiced that the sex of his wife, and the novel fact that she was the first woman in America to write daily for publication, gave to her and her subjects a vogue he and his could not command in a world of more and mainly personal work. She survived him twelve years. Their union was not made any less congenial by marked dissimilarity of convictions on cardinal subjects.

Mrs. Croly was the recipient of many evidences of the honor and affection in which her own sex held her, and beyond doubt the organizations of which she was the inspiring force will pay to her memory the tributes her disinterestedness and abilities deserved, exercised as she always was for so long with projects nearly related to the better equipment of effective womanhood for the conditions and conduct of life. Her death at seventy-two, after not a little suffering and not a few sorrows, was not unexpected, though it will be sincerely and widely regretted. In her last years she was happily made aware of the love and tenderness towards her which she had richly earned by service, counsel, and example to the lives of others.

From Laura Sedgwick Collins

Dear Friend, dear Helper, passed from earth To heaven, in earthly grace, I here Would give to thee homage sincere And memory sweet. Thy ever kindly word Has oft the sad heart warmed, The drooped head raised, and thy sustaining hand A fainting purpose thrilled To better courage, firmer aim.

In that far realm where spirits meet And greet with message mystic, there Thou must, in sweet commune Receive reward for earthly deeds. Thy heart ne'er knew the unkind throb, Was ever gentle, firm and true; Whate'er the cause, if once espoused Thou to thy watchword held thyself.

Throughout our land, in city, town, Thy name beloved remains alive; Alive in hearts, alive in minds,-- For thou hadst heart and brain as well To touch the soul and win the thought. Thy work for woman stands unspoiled; Untouched by vanity or marred by pride, Unsullied by a thought of self,

A generous impulse toward thy sex-- A woman's word for woman's need. And so thy name in fragrance fine Bespeaks again returning June,-- The spring of promise, budding hope! The cypress changes to the rose,-- The rose of dawn, the rose of heaven; And both are thine and thine the crown All jewelled o'er with thy good deeds-- Deeds of mercy, deeds of love, Are with us still though thou art gone!

From Mary Coffin Johnson

Many years before I personally knew Mrs. Croly she was at the height of her useful public life; the imprint of her hand and mind in contemporary literature was an evident fact, and she had become a conspicuous figure in the ranks of well-known women. It is therefore my privilege to speak of her last few years, when the golden light of achievement gilded the eventide of her eventful life.

Having had the peculiar advantage of sitting beside her for six years as an officer of the Woman's Press Club I am thoroughly aware of her sincerity, and of the singleness of heart which, actuated her motives in behalf of women. She believed that every united effort that raises the personal standard of thought and purpose is of the utmost importance. It was her earnest desire that women should live lofty and useful lives. She frequently laid stress upon this manner of life, and at such times her temperament seemed charged with sympathetic interest in young women journalists. "Unity in Diversity," the motto adopted by the General Federation of Women's Clubs, is a fitting expression of the broad conceptions she brought into club life; indeed, her success in bringing women of unequal social position and essentially different callings, into harmonious relationship and unity of purpose was markedly characteristic.

During her last years women's clubs became more than ever of absorbing interest to her, claiming the complete devotion of her broad mind. The untiring devotion she had already given to this part of her life's activities had established her fame, and this fame will ever be exceptionable, for her work can never be duplicated.

The growing spirit of helpfulness and friendliness which inspires women's organizations, the manifold opportunities of various kinds which they afford, and the excellent results which follow could, she thought, scarcely be estimated. "Club life for women," she would say, "requires no justification. When we enter our club rooms we leave behind us much of the rubbish of the world. The richest, fullest development of life flows through the better social relations, and from times of old has been uplifting." "It is not merely that we need one another," she would declare, "but that the sense of kinship is healthful; it inspires the larger love, and creates a stronger relationship. It seems to be God's method of helping humankind to the higher and more perfect life."

On various occasions, when only members of the dub were present, she would lay aside the formality of the presiding member, and, assuming the familiar manner of addressing us, pour forth her lofty ideals for women, unconsciously testifying that the secret spring of her actions was her love for her own sex. Though the words were always spoken with gentle calmness, and in a tone of womanly softness, something in her passionate sincerity would, like the effect of a magnet, attract every listener, and a spell of silence would fall upon us. In all that she said we discerned the Divine Principle.

There were those who, from their own viewpoints, carped at what they heard and saw, but a person even of Mrs. Croly's temperament and courage, placed amid the recurring action and reaction of a life of much publicity, cannot, of course, please every one. It would be surprising if in her long career she had not manifested human imperfections, and had not sometimes made mistakes; she would have been more than human had she not.

It was no easy task for her to stem the tide of difficulties and oppositions from without, for from first to last of her diligent life she had many trials to endure. Both sunbeam and shadow crossed her pathway; but her errors were not uncommon to humankind; moreover, she was very patient under misconception. "It is always fair," said Henry Ward Beecher, "to credit a man at his best,--let his enemies tell of his worst." Another writer remarks: "To get a true idea of any character we most seize upon its higher forming element, that to which it naturally tends."

Hers was far from an impulsive nature, yet there were times when Mrs. Croly suddenly revealed in a marked way her true, deep instincts. While on a visit to this country on one occasion, Madame Antoinette Sterling, a concert singer in England, was a guest of the Woman's Press Club. She was asked to sing for us, and responded with "The Lost Chord." In answer to an encore she sang a ballad of her own composition, called "The Sheepfold." Mrs. Croly was visibly affected by the words; seldom had she ever manifested more feeling. When the song was ended she quickly rose, and in a tremulous voice exclaimed: "Does not this say to us that if even _one_ were outside, the whole strength of the universe would be brought to bear upon it, to bring it into the fold!"

In 1897 Mrs. Croly was honored by the General Federation of Women's Clubs by the appointment to write the "History of the Woman's Club Movement in America," an undertaking that required exceptionable ability. The vast amount of mental energy and wearing labor she put into this work, added to the past years of constant application to literary and other interests, told seriously upon her health. Her nervous system had become exceedingly susceptible, and it was evident that her good constitution was beginning to break down.

However, the indomitable energy she possessed, and her trained capacity for work enabled her to continue until the large volume was finished and given to the public.

Early in June, 1898, Mrs. Croly had a serious fall in which she fractured her hip, and she was confined to her room for many weeks. Though she possessed unusual power of endurance, her lessening strength could no longer bear the strain upon the delicate frame, and her rallying power was perceptibly diminished. As the fracture slowly healed she but feebly met the physical exertion necessary to go about on crutches. Even then it was impossible for her to take life serenely; she was restlessly eager to be up and doing. When she could be removed with safety, which was not until the third of September, she went abroad with her daughter, Mrs. Vida Croly Sidney, who had come over from England for her, and she spent a year in London and the vicinity. In August, 1899, they were in Switzerland, and Mrs. Croly took the baths at Schinznach-les-Bains. She returned to America the following September, and remained in New York through the winter of 1899-1900. The change agreed with, her, but her health cannot be said to have improved, and she was still very infirm. Her natural affection and interest in the Woman's Press Club led her to attend its meetings, whenever she was able, going there in the carriage sent for her. On the 12th of May she was present at a club meeting, and gave us an informal talk, which proved to be her parting address, though at the time we knew it not. That day her words were full of significance. She expressed herself with fervor, chiefly on the importance of clubwomen bearing a large measure of love and good-will towards one another, and of the cultivation of the tie of divine charity. With earnestness she urged again that we should stand "hand to hand to exercise patience in judgment, and to be slow in criticism." "It is God-like," she said, "to forgive. Remember," she continued, "that all that is good in this life emanates from love; that it is the very best thing that this life affords, and that there is nothing on earth that can take the place of its ministry. Love has no limitations, and if you give the best talent you possess to your club it will give it back to you. Club life is often misunderstood, it is true,--but," she slowly added, "there is nothing in this world _entirely_ perfect." She spoke touchingly of the personal sense of loneliness she felt; that although she was a woman among many women she lived many a lonely hour; and she wished it well understood that the love and friendship of clubwomen was to her the most precious thing in her life. In closing she emphasized the counsel she had given, to be "United and conciliatory in our relations with each other; to be just; to suspend judgment; and to wait long and trust God who knows all. He," she declared, "will not misunderstand you."

At the end of May she returned to England. Though nature had not become victorious over her feebleness, and she was still almost helpless from the effect of the accident of 1898, she heroically overcame these physical conditions as far as she was able. Something continually impelled her onward. She attended the International Congress of Women held during the Paris Exposition of that year, and then went on to Ober-Ammergau to the Passion Play, accompanied by Mrs. Sidney; and then returned to England, where she stayed until the 27th of July, 1901, when she again sailed for New York, business matters requiring her presence in this country.

On her arrival in August from the second visit abroad, the grave facts that her health was not established, and that her time here was not to be long, were soon evident to her friends. The struggle of nature not only had begun, the shadow was even now sweeping near. She appeared at the November business meeting of the Woman's Press Club, accompanied by an attendant, and took the chair, but she was so much exhausted by the effort that her nurse easily persuaded her to come away. During the following four weeks her prostration and decline were steady.

As the final day of her human infirmity approached, she expressed to the close friend who sat beside her a timid shrinking, common to all human nature, from the passage out of this life. It may be counted a special mercy that, as it afterwards proved, she need not have had any disquietude concerning the inevitable moment, for a few hours before the closing scene she fell into a state of coma, and passed beyond so quietly and tranquilly that she did not herself know when the moment came. She entered the world of infinite repose in the forenoon of December 23, 1901.

The funeral service was held in the Church of the Transfiguration, Mrs. Croly's friends gathering from far and near to pay their last tributes of love and regard. The women's clubs and societies of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the suburbs, were represented in large numbers, and every seat in the church was filled.

Mrs. Croly lies at rest beside her husband, David G. Croly, in the beautiful cemetery near Lakewood, New Jersey.

"Yon's her step ... an' she's carryin' a licht in her hand; a see it through the door."

From Caroline M. Morse

As Chairman of the Memorial Committee it is my privilege to add my memories of Mrs. Croly to those which have preceded. Mine are not of her club interests, nor of her identification with the woman's club movement. So much has been written, and so well, regarding these public phases of her life that it would seem almost officious for me to add a stone to the already piled up cairn; I write rather of my friend as my family knew her in her home, surrounded by husband and children.

It was in 1880 that we first knew Mr. and Mrs. Croly, and the acquaintance soon became an intimacy that lasted for twenty-three years. They were living in their own house in Seventy-first street, an artistically furnished house, an ideal home full of a sweet domesticity.

Intimate as we were it was frequently our privilege to gather with the family at their Sunday evening supper, when Mrs. Croly was as completely the "house-mother" fulfilling the homely duties of the table, as, an hour later, she was the gracious, though more formal hostess receiving in her drawing-room the usual Sunday night throng of old friends and the strangers of distinction who, chancing to be in town, were fortunate enough to have letters of introduction to her. I see her slight figure moving from group to group, and the low English voice and sweet smile with which she encouraged her visitors to speak of themselves, and, if they were foreigners, of their missions to this country. A characteristic act of hers was to carry around a little silver tray on which there might be several glasses of a dainty punch, the base of which was a light, non-alcoholic wine. This she offered to friends whom she desired particularly to honor, and the act had all the significance of the Russian custom of breaking bread and eating salt with the host. These Sunday evenings at home, which were a feature of the society in which she moved, were continued until a short time before her death, or until she was incapacitated by illness.

My friend had none of the usual failings of the traditionary "emancipated woman"; she would sit down to her basket on an afternoon and take up a bit of household sewing with the same spirit and aptitude that had guided her in the forenoon in the writing of an editorial article or the preparation of a paper to be read before a club.

I recall with especial joy the long walks we used to take together. After a day of wearisome work, it was one of her great delights to leave the piled-up desk and find herself in the street, her arm linked in mine. At such times much of her talk was ravishing speculation upon things seen and unseen. It was as if, released for the moment from the pressure of work, her mind sprang into a world removed from the practical and immediate, to revel in contemplation of the divine. Yet she was no visionary, and the world of sight held her cheerful allegiance. Hers was never "the dyer's hand subdued to what it works in," and this is the more remarkable since she never relinquished work, even for our beloved walks, without a mild protest at laying aside her pen. One afternoon I called, intending to take her out for one of our "play-hours," but I failed to find her in her apartment. Next morning the post brought me this note:

"MY DEAR FRIEND:

"I was so glad to get your card, and so sorry to miss you. It was just that hour out-of-doors with you that I was longing for. I have been so long away, and since my return have been so busy with much detail of correspondence that in quantity is always more or less depressing, that I needed a sight of you to tone me up and restore my standard. I have also taken advantage of enforced quiet to brace up for an heroic two weeks of dentistry, and have therefore been in absolute retirement and upon baby diet of the most innocuous description...

"I am afraid this recapitulation will take away all desire to repeat your effort in my direction. But I trust that this may find you in a missionary humor, and that you will see that I need 'looking after'--a far stronger motive with most women than friendship, isn't it? Anyway, come again soon, won't you? Afternoon is our gadding time, you know.

"Really and lovingly your friend.

"P.S.--This note will show that I truly have not command of all my faculties and need a human tonic."

All out-of-doors was dear to her. Trees were to her as men--rooted, and she often naively talked to them as if to friends while we strolled in the twilight. Her love of nature even seemed to affect her choice of diet, for she preferred simply prepared dishes and the natural foods. This was doubtless due in part to her unmixed Old World nationality and to her early surroundings in rural England: as she was in girlhood, so, in spite of the complex life of this distracting New World, she remained to the last.

My friend dwelt lovingly upon anniversaries; the true spirit of Christmas entered her heart at every Yuletide season, and her gifts showed generous care in selection and in the dainty wrappings in which they were sent to us. She delighted in the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, but St. Valentine's was the dearest, as it was the anniversary of her marriage. This the Woman's Press Club of New York has always observed as the date of its annual dinner.

She had a keen sense of humor, yet never did she forget herself either in posing or pranks, for hers was the unerring sense of the fitness of things. An instance of her ready wit comes to me: Soon after her return from her last visit to England she came to us to stay for a few days. It was in September, three months before her death. On Sunday evening several friends dropped in, and from general conversation we drifted into singing some of the old songs. Now and then she would add her own low tones to our untrained vocalizing, crooning or cantillating the tune as if she were musing aloud. We had been singing for a full hour, she, with crutch near at hand, sitting apart from us at the open window. We had just sung one of her favorites, the old ballad "Far Away," and were beginning another with all the energy of amateurs when it occurred to me that Mrs. Croly might be tired and ready to go to her room for the night. Bending over I whispered, "Come, dear, you must be weary of all this." She turned slowly in her chair, and looking up into my face, smiling whimsically, said: "Oh, no, not yet! I am enjoying the music just as if it were good!"

I have already intimated that the home life of the family was happy. There existed between husband and wife a genuine congeniality in tastes and pursuits; yet between any two minds when both are strong and original there will generally be a divergence; and it has always seemed to me that the origin of Sorosis might be traced by the psychological analyst to some such divergence between Mrs. Croly's lines of intellectual development and those of her equally gifted husband, David G. Croly. The power of initiative was strong in each of these two, and in each it produced excellent though differing results.

It is cause for regret that Mrs. Croly did not write more in her latter years, when her native wisdom had ripened in the soil of a rich experience.

Her philosophy was the fruit of a rightly-lived, useful life, and even after the distressing accident which lamed her, her enthusiasm never waned, but rather seemed intensified and glorified. Seldom do the heart and brain work together as did hers. She will ever stand to those who knew her as a fine specimen of a rare type. She had convictions, and she had the courage to uphold them. She hated shams and hypocrisy with the vigor of Carlyle. The bravery of her public life was matched by the beauty of her private life. Good and Truth were her watchwords. "Good has faculty," says Swedenborg, "but not determinate except by truth. Determinate faculty is actual power." In the dear friend whom we here commemorate, faculty was determinate.

Brave and honest pleader for woman; true, tender, sincere friend, you fought the good fight well; the world is better for your work, and among your saddest survivors are those whom you smote with a deserved pen-stroke, or with spoken words, who have long since given you grateful thanks.

C.M.M.

L'Envoi

She cut a path through tangled underwood Of old traditions out to broader ways. She lived to hear her work called brave and good, But oh! the thorns, before the crown of bays. The world gives lashes to its pioneers Until the goal is reached--then deafening cheers.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.