feels some individual responsibility for the poverty of others. When the sympathies are not blunted by any false philosophy, one feels reproached by one's own abundance. I once heard a young girl, about to take her summer outing, when asked by her grandmother if she had all the dresses she needed, reply, "Oh, yes! I was oppressed with a constant sense of guilt, when packing, to see how much I had, while so many girls have nothing decent to wear."
More than half a century has rolled by since I stood on Irish soil, and shed tears of pity for the wretchedness I saw, and no change for the better has as yet come to that unhappy people—yet this was the land of Burke, Grattan, Shiel, and Emmett; the land into which Christianity was introduced in the fifth century, St. Patrick being the chief apostle of the new faith. In the sixth century Ireland sent forth missionaries from her monasteries to convert Great Britain and the nations of Northern Europe. From the eighth to the twelfth century Irish scholars held an enviable reputation. In fact, Ireland was the center of learning at one time. The arts, too, were cultivated by her people; and the round towers, still pointed out to travelers, are believed to be the remains of the architecture of the tenth century. The ruin of Ireland must be traced to other causes than the character of the people or the Catholic religion. Historians give us facts showing English oppressions sufficient to destroy any nation.
The short, dark days of November intensified, in my eyes, the gloomy prospects of that people, and made the change to the Sirius of the Cunard Line, the first regular Atlantic steamship to cross the ocean, most enjoyable. Once on the boundless ocean, one sees no beggars, no signs of human misery, no crumbling ruins of vast cathedral walls, no records of the downfall of mighty nations, no trace, even, of the mortal agony of the innumerable host buried beneath her bosom. Byron truly says:
"Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow—
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now."
When we embarked on the Sirius, we had grave doubts as to our safety and the probability of our reaching the other side, as we did not feel that ocean steamers had yet been fairly tried. But, after a passage of eighteen days, eleven hours, and fifteen minutes, we reached Boston, having spent six hours at Halifax. We little thought that the steamer Sirius of fifty years ago would ever develop into the magnificent floating palaces of to-day—three times as large and three times as swift. In spite of the steamer, however, we had a cold, rough, dreary voyage, and I have no pleasant memories connected with it. Our fellow-passengers were all in their staterooms most of the time. Our good friend Mr. Birney had sailed two weeks before us, and as Mr. Stanton was confined to his berth, I was thrown on my own resources. I found my chief amusement in reading novels and playing chess with a British officer on his way to Canada. When it was possible I walked on deck with the captain, or sat in some sheltered corner, watching the waves. We arrived in New York, by rail, the day before Christmas. Everything looked bright and gay in our streets. It seemed to me that the sky was clearer, the air more refreshing, and the sunlight more brilliant than in any other land!
Chapter VII.
Motherhood.
We found my sister Harriet in a new home in Clinton Place (Eighth Street), New York city, then considered so far up town that Mr. Eaton's friends were continually asking him why he went so far away from the social center, though in a few months they followed him. Here we passed a week. I especially enjoyed seeing my little niece and nephew, the only grandchildren in the family. The girl was the most beautiful child I ever saw, and the boy the most intelligent and amusing. He was very fond of hearing me recite the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes entitled "The Height of the Ridiculous," which I did many times, but he always wanted to see the lines that almost killed the man with laughing. He went around to a number of the bookstores one day and inquired for them. I told him afterward they were never published; that when Mr. Holmes saw the effect on his servant he suppressed them, lest they should produce the same effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the Boston newspapers. My explanation never satisfied him. I told him he might write to Mr. Holmes, and ask the privilege of reading the original manuscript, if it still was or ever had been in existence. As one of my grand-nephews was troubled in exactly the same way, I decided to appeal myself to Dr. Holmes for the enlightenment of this second generation. So I wrote him the following letter, which he kindly answered, telling us that his "wretched man" was a myth like the heroes in "Mother Goose's Melodies":
"DEAR DR. HOLMES:
"I have a little nephew to whom I often recite 'The Height of the Ridiculous,' and he invariably asks for the lines that produced the fatal effect on your servant. He visited most of the bookstores in New York city to find them, and nothing but your own word, I am sure, will ever convince him that the 'wretched man' is but a figment of your imagination. I tried to satisfy him by saying you did not dare to publish the lines lest they should produce a similar effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the Boston journals.
"However, he wishes me to ask you whether you kept a copy of the original manuscript, or could reproduce the lines with equal power. If not too much trouble, please send me a few lines on this point, and greatly oblige,
"Yours sincerely,
"ELIZABETH CADY STANTON."
"MY DEAR MRS. STANTON:
"I wish you would explain to your little nephew that the story of the poor fellow who almost died laughing was a kind of a dream of mine, and not a real thing that happened, any more than that an old woman 'lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do,' or that Jack climbed the bean stalk and found the giant who lived at the top of it. You can explain to him what is meant by imagination, and thus turn my youthful rhymes into a text for a discourse worthy of the Concord School of Philosophy. I have not my poems by me here, but I remember that 'The Height of the Ridiculous' ended with this verse:
"Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can."
"But tell your nephew he mustn't cry about it any more than because geese go barefoot and bald eagles have no nightcaps. The verses are in all the editions of my poems.
"Believe me, dear Mrs. Stanton,
"Very Truly and Respectfully Yours,
"OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES."
After spending the holidays in New York city, we started for Johnstown in a "stage sleigh, conveying the United States mail," drawn by spanking teams of four horses, up the Hudson River valley. We were three days going to Albany, stopping over night at various points; a journey now performed in three hours. The weather was clear and cold, the sleighing fine, the scenery grand, and our traveling companions most entertaining, so the trip was very enjoyable. From Albany to Schenectady we went in the railway cars; then another sleighride of thirty miles brought us to Johnstown. My native hills, buried under two feet of snow, tinted with the last rays of the setting sun, were a beautiful and familiar sight. Though I had been absent but ten months, it seemed like years, and I was surprised to find how few changes had occurred since I left. My father and mother, sisters Madge and Kate, the old house and furniture, the neighbors, all looked precisely the same as when I left them. I had seen so much and been so constantly on the wing that I wondered that all things here should have stood still. I expected to hear of many births, marriages, deaths, and social upheavals, but the village news was remarkably meager. This hunger for home news on returning is common, I suppose, to all travelers.
