Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June by Various
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Various >> Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, Jenny June
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Yours faithfully,
J. C. CROLY.
82 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE,
LONDON, W.C., April 10, 1901.
My very dear Friend and President:
How good it was of you to send me the beautiful souvenirs of the
thirty-third Annual Breakfast. They took me straight back to you all
through a mist of tears that were half pleasure, half pain; pleasure
that I was not forgotten, pain that I was not there to see the loving
glance, and share the hand-clasp. It is true I have many friends here,
but none that seem quite like the old friends; and there is only one
Sorosis--God's blessing be upon it for evermore! Yet wherever I go,
God's blessing and His Spirit seem to me to have descended upon women.
They show the most wonderful goodness and insight. They seem each one
to be specially made; not the kind that are kept in stock, so to
speak. Oh, I feel sometimes as if all my life had been partly a test,
partly an experience of their goodness, and that it is a sufficient
blessing, for nothing else has been left me.
A writer remarked the other day, in an article on the South African
war, that the best results of war were ties--the spirit of good
comradeship that it established among men. This is what we
preeminently get out of our club life, and without paying so fearful a
price for it. I hope to see you all when you come together in the
autumn.
With loving remembrance,
J.C. CROLY.
Letters to Mrs. Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (London)
11 BARTON STREET, WEST KENSINGTON,
Jan. 15, 1889.
My Dear Mrs. Stopes:
It is very kind of you to take this trouble to give us a pleasure, and
I would not miss it on any account. But it is a little difficult for
me to name the day. I am in the hands of the dentist this week; I
shall hardly get through to go to the Writers' Club on Friday. These
two circumstances have postponed my visit to Miss Genevieve Ward to
whom it is now arranged that I go a week from to-morrow. I could make
it any afternoon that week that would suit you. Mrs. Sidney will be
delighted also to accept your invitation; and perhaps Miss Ward also.
Please make the afternoon to suit yourself and Miss Blackburn.
Really yours,
J.C. CROLY.
Jan. 19.
I go to Miss Ward's on Monday. It is her day at home, and therefore
will be more or less fatiguing. Tuesday I have promised to dine at the
Crescent Club with Mrs. Phillips and hear Mr. Felix Moscheles' lecture
afterwards. Miss Ward and her brother, Col. Albert Lee Ward, go also.
Three days of continuous going out would be too much for me, and
something would have to give way. I would rather it would be any event
than yours. Suppose you arrange it for the week following, and in the
meantime call for me at Miss Ward's on Monday. You will find Miss Ward
a very striking personality, and I particularly wish Col. Ward to
accompany me to your house. I will see you on Friday, and you can tell
me how you decide.
J.C. CROLY.
Jan. 20.
Friday the 27th will suit me very well. I have been out-of-doors so
little as yet, that I feared I might break down on the third day of
trying. I do know Lady Roberts Austen; have been to luncheon at her
house, but have not seen her since I came this time; I have
communicated as yet with so few. I heard from her the other day
however, and I know she will go to your house if she possibly can. I
have to drive wherever I go. I move too slowly for crowds and public
conveyances. I cannot risk weather.
Feb. 8.
I want to thank you for the afternoon I spent at your house; I enjoyed
it so very much. You will not consider me "pushing" if I say I am only
half satisfied. There are so many sides to your house; I want to see
the Queen of Scots portrait again, and the Donatello, and some of your
rare cookery books. I expect to change my quarters in about three
weeks to the North West; then you will let me come and browse, won't
you. But first you must come and lunch with me. With kind regards to
your delightful family,
I am, etc.
March 12.
May I come up next Thursday afternoon and bring with me an American
friend, Mrs. Stockber of Silverton, Colorado, who has just arrived by
the _Umbria_. Mrs. Stockber is an unusually interesting woman. She is
equal owner with her husband, an intelligent and large-minded German,
of one of the largest silver mines in the States, and is one of the
only two honorary women members of the great Association of Mining
Engineers of the United States. Mrs. Griffin, the President of the new
Society of American Women in London, also wants to come. I don't want
to inundate you; and this is only to ask if you are better, and can
receive a trio safely.
Yours, etc.
March 16.
I am sorry to give you so much trouble. But I have a friend here just
now, a woman of unusual character and ability. I remember I told you
of her. The other is Mrs. Helen T. Richards of the Boston Institute of
Technology. The only moment I can get her is on Monday afternoon, and
I want her to see the collection of prints and your pictures. If it is
all right I will bring her with me on Monday at 3 P.M. We must go to
Miss Ward's at 4.30. Do not have tea at that primitive hour; for we
shall be obliged to have a cup at Miss Ward's. I wish we might have a
chance of seeing Mr. Stopes; but of course that is something that may
be prayed for, but not what common people are made for. Dear, take
care of yourself if you can. There is only one of you.
Yours,
J.C.C.
March 17.
We will postpone. I cannot reach my two troublesome friends, and next
week you will be busy and tired. "By-and-by" is coming with the sun
and flowers. We will come too.
Yours lovingly and really,
J.C.C.
June 25, 1901,
82 SOMERS' STREET, W.C.
My very dear Friend:
I have only time to thank you for your kind "welcome," and tell you
how sorry I am not to see you to-day, and your precious Winnie, who I
hope has really started on the road to recovery. Children are the
richest boon vouchsafed us in this world, and the parents are the
trustees of this wealth committed to their charge, but belonging to
the world at large, and of which time only tells the value. I shall be
very busy now for a few days, but will see you as soon as possible.
Affectionately,
J.C.C.
[Illustration: Facsimile of a portion of a letter written by Mrs.
Croly in October, 1900.]
222 WEST 23D STREET,
NEW YORK, Jan. 16, 1901.
My dear Friend:
Thank you very much for your letter and card. It was a great pleasure
to me to receive it, and to learn something about yourself and what
you are doing. The news was long belated. The letter was to have been
printed the week that I left, and I provided to have it sent to about
a dozen friends as a good-bye. But it was so long delayed by Transvaal
excitement and sad war news, that I did not expect it to appear at
all.
I had a wonderful celebration on my seventieth birthday in December;
poems written, cakes with seventy candles sent, and a great
spontaneous gathering in my honor, which really bothered me not a
little, for I do not pose worth a cent, and do not know where to look
or what to do when people compliment me.
However, one thing gratified me above all others. It was a "birthday
party" given me by the Daughters of 1812--the most exclusive of
patriotic societies that is restricted to lineal descendants. The
gathering was magnificent; the cake was brought in lighted by seventy
candles borne on the shoulders of four men. By unanimous vote they
conferred upon me honorary membership, and the insignia were
conferred. The president in seconding the motion said, this departure
from their rules (alluding to my English birth) was not in honor of
"the club," nor of the "literary women," but of the woman who knew no
line of separation, and whose work had been done for all women. Was
not that a beautiful thing to say? Only that I intend to be cremated,
I would have it put on my tombstone.
We had a very bright and very beautiful beginning here to the "Holy
Year," so far as weather is concerned, and it is also very gay, though
my lameness prevents me from participating much in social doings. I am
also grieved by the unexpected effects of the Boer war, in England.
There must have been shocking blundering and mismanagement somewhere.
The pitying way in which "poor, stupid, decrepit old England" is
talked about is galling. Some military officers remarked recently that
England was hardly worth having a "scrap" with, she would be so easy
to beat.
Our General Federation holds a Congress in Paris in June, and my
passage is taken for May 19th. If nothing untoward prevents, I shall
be in London for a week early in June, and then go to Paris and
Ober-Ammergau. If you could go it would be very pleasant. Give my love
to your daughters, and kind regards to Mr. Stopes.
Yours ever,
J.C. CROLY.
Letter to Mrs. Carrie Louise Griffin
82 GOWER STREET, BEDFORD SQUARE, W. C.
June 25, 1901.
My dear Mrs. Griffin:
Mr. Bell wants an article immediately, about the American Society, for
the Chicago _Recorder_; and I am glad to write it, because it enables
me to make it stand for what it does; and will, still more, in the
very heart of western clubdom; and will be a John the Baptist for you
if you should go over next summer. He wants some photographs, yours
particularly; which please send. He left his card with address of
_Recorder_ in Fleet Street, which I omitted to take up-stairs at the
moment, and afterwards it could not be found. I am hoping that you
have it and will give it to me, or that Mr. Griffin perhaps knows it.
If you can drop in on Monday, A.M., I should be glad to ask you in
regard to some members--what to say of them, etc. Would Mrs. Clarence
Burns allow her picture to be used, and have you one of Mrs. De
Friese?
Always faithfully yours,
J. C. CROLY.
From a Letter to Mrs. May Riley Smith
... I have never done anything that was not helpful to woman so far as
it lay in my power. (April 2, 1886.)
Letters to Miss Anna Warren Story (Chairman of Executive Committee of
the Woman's Press Club of New York)
HILL FARM COTTAGE, HERSHAM,
WALTON-ON-THAMES, ENGLAND,
Oct. 29, 1900.
My dear Executive:
Your letter giving me all the news to date was most kind and welcome.
It seems very strange to be away from you all in this secluded corner
of Surrey, with nothing in sight but woods, a meadow in which cows are
grazing, and one neighboring cottage. My morning walk, when the
weather will admit of walking, is along the old post road lined with
woods and at the foot of our little lane or entrance to farm. The
other morning one solemn old cow put her head through the fence, and
stared with amazement at my crutches. Four others walked over to see
what she was looking at; and they all stood in a row, looking and
making no sound as long as I could see them. It was very funny.
It seems so odd after so many years of continuous and often hurried
work, to be using days for walking, and little things that since I was
a grown woman have been crowded into odds and ends of time, or omitted
for want of enough of it. I am gaining strength, however, and realize
how complete the prostration was, and how radical the reconstructive
processes had to be. The seclusion in which I live, surrounded by pine
woods, a mile and a half from the nearest post office (tho' a postman
brings our letters) and an equal distance from such supplies as a
village can afford, is a little trying in some ways, but a real boon
to me in my present condition.
It would have been very easy to plunge into the activities of women in
London. Many invitations have reached me, but I have been nowhere but
to one little dinner given by our only neighbor, the wife of a London
editor, and herself a popular story writer.
I can walk now with one crutch and a stick, and begin to hope for
complete restoration, which at one time seemed to me impossible. But,
oh, how tedious and wearing it is! We have an unusually fine October
for England, but gray skies and almost daily rains now. But the Surrey
country is beautiful, full of quaint old villages and objects of
picturesque interest. I am longing for the time and the weather to
explore it. I could write all day about my gradually growing desire to
be "up and doing." But time and space do not admit. Let me say in one
word how deeply I was touched by the action of the Executive
Committee, the Governing Board, and club. But I am also disappointed.
I wanted to leave the field clear, and have new energy put into the
club by bringing into active and central circulation the young, best
blood we possess. Thank you for your assurance that as far as possible
that will be done; and thank every officer and every member in my
behalf for the long and affectionate confidence they have reposed in
me, and for the many acts of personal kindness I have received from
them.
I am sorry you have lost the Countess by removal, and other valuable
members by death...
Yours faithfully and affectionately,
J.C. CROLY
NORFOLK VILLA, WEYBRIDGE, SURREY,
August 20, 1901.
My dear Anna:
Your letter came most opportunely. I had been thinking about you, the
Press Club, and my dear friends at home; for somehow I have not felt
the old pleasure in being in England, and if I had a home to come back
to, and my goods and chattels were not so far off, I should have come
back, I think, this autumn.
For one thing, the weather has not been favorable. We had such warm
weather in July; but every month has had a week or more of very cold
and wet weather. In Ober-Ammergau on the 8th of July we perished with
the cold, and the rain almost caked in ice upon us. Still, even such
weather could not spoil Ober-Ammergau. It is the one thing of its kind
on earth, and the nearest to an absolutely perfect thing I ever saw. A
great charm is the unconsciousness of the performers. They do not play
to an audience. There are no footlights, nothing theatrical; only the
Great Tragedy wrought out as a living reality. I think of all the
scenes; the one that made the deepest impression upon me was the one
in which there were the fewest actors and least acting. That was the
Garden of Gethsemane. So intense was the agony of spirit, that it
seemed as if I myself should cry out if the disciples had not gone
away and left the Saviour alone to his mortal struggle.
It is a great thing, Anna, that these people have done. They have
lived the Passion of Christ for nearly three hundred years. They are
born in it; they are fed upon it. They have made a cult of religion;
and they are absolutely religious, but not in the least sectarian. The
Christ they have lifted up draws all men unto him.
I have been in a quiet country place for four weeks, and shall stay
two weeks longer... If I remain this winter we shall probably go back
to Paris by November and to Italy in the spring. Now that I am here I
might as well give myself this one more chance... I was very tired
when I came back from our hurried trip, and was very glad of rest and
quiet...
Do not let my dear friends in the Press Club build upon me, or weaken
their force by re-electing me. Elect a young, strong, press woman.
Anna, do this without any reference to personal feeling or likes or
dislikes. You are capable of acting impersonally. Beg the club to do
this in my name, and to pick out their best for the chairmen of their
representative committees.
My own dear friends and fellow members; how I wish I could make them
feel the strength of my desire for their growth in wisdom and honor.
God bless them all!
Yours affectionately and faithfully,
J.C. CROLY.
ASHOVER, DERBYSHIRE,
May 30, 1901.
My dear Anna:
Your kind letter arrived this morning, forwarded by Mrs. Sidney to
this remote village in Derbyshire. I left London ten days ago because
I had to get fresh air and quiet. Ashover is a quiet little village; a
paradise of meadows starred with flowers, and wooded and cultivated;
hills in which all the treasures of one of the richest counties in
England (in floral wealth) are to be found. When I came here there
were still primroses, cowslips, violets, forget-me-nots, and fields
white with small daisies and yellow with buttercups. Now there are
masses of yarrow, marguerites, rhododendrons, bluebells, and great
trees of white and purple lilacs. Roses, I am told, will cover
everything by and by, but development is a little late this year. I
wish you could spend a month here this summer: what a revelation of
English beauty it would be to you!
Thank you for your sympathy with my personal troubles. I am not
unhappy... The goodness of women to me is always and everywhere
miraculous. This alone makes life worth living...
I am rejoiced to hear of the Press Club's prosperity. Nothing could
give me greater pleasure than to know of its constant growth and
advancement.
With love, ever yours,
J. C. CROLY.
Letters to Mrs. Caroline M. Morse
HILL FARM COTTAGE, WALTON-ON-THAMES,
SURREY, ENGLAND, Dec. 13, 1898.
My dear friend:
I was sorry to know from Ethel's note, received day before yesterday,
that you had been ill, and were still unable to the task of writing. I
wished above all things that I could in some way help and comfort you,
having always in mind the help and comfort you were to me during the
trying days last summer that followed my accident, and the consequent
long and tedious illness. There are many people who feel
sympathetically, but so few are capable and who are ready or are
permitted to apply the act of sympathy. It is the friend in need that
is the friend we remember with a grateful, lasting love...
At this moment we are on the eve of removal to London where we are
taking rooms once occupied by the family of David Christie Murray. We
go to-morrow, and begin a new chapter in this most disastrous of
years. So many things seem to culminate toward the close of the
century--good fortune for some, evil fortune for others; hopes dashed
at the seeming moment of realization, as if all the forces in nature
were aiding to make an end of the century's efforts in any way that
would bring finality.
For my part I feel as if I had been forcibly brought to a standstill.
In a few days (the 19th) I shall have reached the milestone: I shall
be seventy. Sorosis would have made an occasion of it if I had been in
New York. As it is, I feel a little tinge of regret that my
annihilation last June was not more complete; that I did not leave,
along with my dear friend, Mrs. Demorest. Not that I am wholly
unhappy; I only feel somehow brought to an unfinished close; left in a
state of animated suspension. I seem to see everything from a
distance; separated by my inability to participate in the goings and
comings, the doings and pleasures of others. I feel the wall that
stands between those who still live and those who have passed from
this world; but alas, I still retain consciousness, and desire for
sympathy, and can see and hear and feel, though my feet are chained.
It is just three months since I arrived. A part of the time we had
beautiful weather, and I could walk on the road a little on sunshiny
days, leaning upon my two sticks. But during the past five weeks, my
out-door exercise has been nil: the roads were too wet and rough. It
has been almost constant fog, rain, wind; and the drip, drip, drip, of
a mist that was wetter than rain. This, I think, has added a little
rheumatism to give name to the pain and stiffness of joints and newly
forming muscles. The change we are about to make will be a new
departure for me--I shall have to try stairs... But I shall have the
dear companionship of Marjorie,[1] who has lived an ideal out-of-door
life here. She will there begin to have regular lessons at home, or go
to kindergarten. I have been reading to her Mary Proctor's "Starland,"
which by your thoughtful prompting she caused to be sent to me through
her London publishers. I am so much obliged to you and to her for
remembering the promise that I should have a copy. It is charming, and
ought to have a wide sale...
[Footnote 1: Her grandchild.]
I must stop; Vida has come for my mail, and is going to the
post-office on her bicycle. She and Mr. Sidney are never so happy as
when taking long bicycle rides on these fine English country roads.
With warmest greetings to Colonel Morse and Ethel, and ever loving
remembrance to you, dear friend, I am, as always,
Ever yours,
J.C.C.
11 BARTON STREET, WEST KENSINGTON,
LONDON, January 29, 1899.
My dear friend:
I have been wondering these many days where you are and how it is with
you. How I have wished that you were near by, and that we could have
taken some of my lonely, painful "duty" walks upon crutches together.
I miss your sympathy and ever ready kindness... I suffer terribly now
with sore and swollen feet--the result of pain, stiffness, strain in
movement, and lack of exercise. But I am stronger. I can now lift my
arms and brush my own hair...
We are having beautiful weather just now. We have had sunshine for a
week, and people go about announcing the fact with joy and surprise,
as if a new Saviour had arisen; all but the Americans, newly come, who
complain about everything, rain or shine...
J.C.C.
LONDON, Jan. 16, 1901.
Dear friend:
This letter is for the family. Poor as it will be, it will have to
tell of all I would like to say to you, and for the thousand and one
things I would like to tell of London and of the many kindnesses I
have received. I had not expected to be here this winter, as you know,
and ought not to be. The cold and the damp have developed rheumatism
of a very severe type in my lame leg, and I suffer from pain and
difficulty in walking... I could, of course, obtain some mitigation of
these conditions, but the same reason that compelled my return to
London, Mr. P.'s actual failure, has so encroached upon my
income--without a prospect of even partial recovery for a long time to
come--as to make it almost equally difficult to live either in
Switzerland, where, at Schinznach-les-Bains, I could receive so much
benefit; or in London, or New York. I wish, as I wished two years ago,
that my accident had ended it, and saved all the pain and difficulty
of solving a perpetual and insoluble problem... It seems sometimes as
if there were only two kinds of people in the world--those who ride
over others roughshod, and those who are ridden over. The cruel
accident that shattered me on that June day shattered my world. Life
since then seems in the nature of a resurrection; every day a special
gift, and every pleasant thing an act of Divine Providence. Love to
you all. This is about myself. Write soon and tell me all about
yourselves.
Lovingly,
J.C.C.
From a Letter to Mrs. Christina J. Higley
LONDON, July--, 1899.
My dear friend:
... It seems as if everything had been taken from me but the
friendship, the affection of women; and that manifests itself here as
well as at home. God bless them! They have made all the brightness of
my life.
Affectionately,
J.C.C.
From a Letter to Mrs. Catherine Young
LONDON, Sept. 3, 1895.
Dearest Mrs. Young:
Your letter has been before my eyes many times...
Keep up your courage and your faith in women and in the _old flag_. I
came across it the first time after I arrived, in a moment of extreme
despondency. It did me a world of good... In three weeks, if all goes
well, I shall see you. We sail for New York on the 12th of this month.
Affectionately,
J.C.C.
From a Letter to Mrs. Harriet Nourse
... Oh, yes, I have made my will many times; but some man always
spoils it and I am obliged to make it over, I am not at all
superstitious about making a will. My only trouble is having nothing
to leave. I am fond of superstitions--the little ones. They give
interest to life, if you have to spend it in one place. A little
unreason is less monotonous than the eternally reasonable, and if it
makes you happy for a minute to see the moon over your right shoulder,
why not see it, and be unreasonably happy?
From a Letter to Mrs. Margaret W. Lemon
222 WEST 23RD STREET,
NEW YORK, Feb. 20, 1900.
My dear Mrs. Lemon:
I am very glad you are to formulate the resolution of thanks and
appreciation of the work of the Reception Committees. Of course it
goes without saying that it will be spread upon the minutes.
The work was altogether so fine and painstaking, and showed such
thought, care, taste and judgment, that, apart from my personal
pleasure in it, I felt exceedingly proud, and happy at the complete
and beautiful result... I am sorry you do not like "Current Events."
To me "Current Topics" means the fag end of everything we know and
have been obliged to read about in the papers. "Current Events" has a
broader significance, and leaves out the trivial and vulgar.
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