An Incident Which Shows That
One Should Not Talk Too Much.
Here is an incident which, to be appreciated, needs a glance at the sweet womanly face of the young Mrs. Stanton.
Mrs. Stanton was summering at Saratoga, eagerly enjoying the delights of that fascinating young watering place half a century ago – a merry young mother, in great demand for her agreeable manners and sparkling conversation, as well as for her talented performances upon the guitar.
Chatting with a friend one day, the woman question – that bugbear of the moment – was brought up.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“Isn’t it dreadful,” he remarked, “to think of a woman so unsexing herself as actually to appear before the legislature at Albany?”
Naturally enough, the heroine of this very shocking procedure protested against this interpretation of woman’s sphere; yet, amused by her friend’s faux pas, mischievously she led him on.
“What kind of a woman is this Mrs. Stanton?” she inquired.
“Oh, a dreadful kind of a woman!” was the reply. “Just the kind of woman one would expect would do such a thing.”
“Do describe her,” pleaded his tormentor. “Tell me more about her.”
And he, nothing loath, went on: “Well, she’s a large, masculine-looking woman, with high cheek-bones and a loud, harsh voice don’t you know just one of those regular woman’s rights women.”“Have you really seen her, or is this taken from the papers?” she asked, quietly.
“Of course I have seen her; did I not tell you that I heard her before the legislature?”
“How did she speak?”
“Frightfully; it was simply awful. Her strident voice and her masculine appearance should have been the death-knell to her cause.”
“What is her name, did you say?”
“Mrs. Stanton Mrs. Henry Stanton, In fact”
“Why that’s my name!” she said.
“‘Of course she’s your namesake, so I thought you would be Interested. But I knew it could be no relation of yours. Ha, ha, ha!”
Mrs. Stanton rose. “I am afraid I am she,” she said.
Of course, there was nothing for him to do but to confess and grovel.
The wonderful work of archivists have preserved far more material than we usually see. Our goal here is to unearth and present some of the stuff we never saw in school.