Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 members.h.i.+p, 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 partic.i.p.ating 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 "sc.r.a.p" with, she would be so easy to beat.

Our General Federation holds a Congress in Paris in June, and my pa.s.sage 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.surance 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 Pa.s.sion 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.

G.o.d bless them all!

Yours affectionately and faithfully, J.C. CROLY.

ASHOVER, DERBYs.h.i.+RE, May 30, 1901.

My dear Anna: