Really yours, J.C. CROLY.



7 RUE D'ASSAS, PARIS, FRANCE, October 3, 1900.

My very dear President and Friend:

Your letter was most welcome. I have been in a quiet little country place since coming from Ober-Ammergau, and know no one. I thought much of you in those quiet days, and wished to write, but waited to hear, and the echoes did come in a way I understood, for I had letters before leaving America which were an indication of the general trend of thought and desire. Of course I never for a moment misunderstood your attitude in the matter of the election... You could not help your election. [Referring to the first vice-presidency of the General Federation.]

I am very, very sorry the color question has been raised again. It almost made a split six years ago. It was, at the best, premature. It was a sacrifice of the greater to the less, of the real good we had attained and the ideal towards which we were working, to a theoretical possibility which had not yet presented itself. We have yet a thousand obstacles to overcome within ourselves; a thousand problems to solve; an ideal to work towards capable of infinite expansion. But we should not strain the limits while the centre still lacks order and form, and depends upon the wisdom with which it is guided for permanence.

We have made some dreadful blunders,... but ideals are not stones in the street; they are stars in the sky. They are always beyond us; we cannot wear them as breast-pins but we can work towards them...

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.



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.

Sincerely yours, J. C. CROLY.



From a Letter to Mrs. E. S. Willard

BELLA-VISTA, BOSTON HARBOR, MASS., August 28, 1901.

... As yet I think I am still in London; or at least still in England. Crossing the Atlantic is not so much of an undertaking; less than taking a "trip" with "crossing" changes. Packing and unpacking, and the harassing "customs" are the worst features. There were only fifty-six passengers on the Minneapolis, but it took us from 8 A.M. to 1 P.M., in a pouring rain, to pass the argus-eyes of one hundred and eight inspectors, about two to each passenger.

In my case it seemed a bit ironical,—one of Thomas Hardy's "Little Ironies," for a rapid American trustee had lost my whole capital during my absence... The necessity for tying up the ragged ends and applying a test brought me home. But it is a trial, though I seem to have lost the power to be unhappy. Do you know what that means? Is that unarmed neutrality the serenity of Heaven?

I am as yet living in England. My thoughts are there, and my desire. I see you and a few others whom I love come and go, and I exchange the loving word, the kindly smile, the sympathetic look.

I am waiting for an indication of where I am to end my days. If my steps turn towards the isles of the sea, you will be a magnet to draw me, you with your spiritual beauty, and your constant, unfailing goodness. God bless you, and grant that I may see you again, and that we may gain the love, as well as the peace, that passeth all understanding.

Yours always, J.C. CROLY.



Resolutions of Protest Offered by Mrs. Croly Through the Woman's Press Club

(From the Recording Secretary's Report)

At a special meeting of the Governing Board, held in the club rooms, 126 East 23rd street, Dec. 26, 1892, the following resolution proposed by the president was adopted.

Resolved: That the Woman's Press Club has learned with deep regret of the backward action of the Columbian University of Washington, in deciding to exclude women from its Medical Department, after ten years of co-education.

Resolved: That we unite with Pro-Re-Nata of Washington, D. C., in expressing an emphatic protest against this retrograde movement; that we earnestly hope that better counsels will prevail; that, at a time when so conservative an institution as the British Medical Association has voted to open its doors to women, the stigma of retrogression will not be allowed to rest upon the foremost school in the Capitol of the Nation.



Tributes of Friends



Jane Cunningham Croly

An Appreciation from Miriam Mason Greeley

In the joyful Christmas-tide of 1829, into the sweet influence of an English country home there came to life a blue-eyed, brown-haired maiden, whose sunny nature was destined to laugh with gladness of heart, or smile through falling tears, for more than seventy eventful years. "Jenny June" while yet a child came with her family to New York State, entering here an atmosphere well adapted to foster her activities and her power to work for the good of others. Her breadth of vision and her genial sympathy would have been evinced in any land or clime, but in the stimulating freedom of American thought her abilities developed to their best.

She found opportunity to plant the seeds of earnest thought, of which later she was to gather such a rich harvest in the confidence of her fellow-women. Her eager mind was a rich soil for the growth of ideas springing from her fertile brain; which led her to be both conservative and impetuous, grave or vivacious, ever fearless and versatile, all pervaded with the wholesome balance of quick penetration.

To her is due the tribute of praise for having borne the heat and burden of the day in the early development of women's clubs. Friends tried to persuade her to abandon her plans for organizing woman's varied abilities, ridicule assailed her most cherished hope, and the sarcasm of opponents barred the way. She lived to triumph in seeing her aims successful, and after thirty-five years of club life to be honored by one of the highest gifts in the power of the General Federation to offer—the honorary vice-presidency.

Mrs. Croly formulated in 1890 her well-matured plan for a general federation of women's clubs, and with the cordial assistance of the "Mother Club, Sorosis," issued the first call for representatives of women's clubs of all the States to meet.

Stimulated by the success of the General Federation, Mrs. Croly urged the formation of the New York State Federation, and assisted by Sorosis as the hostess, an invitation was issued to all the State clubs to be the guests of Sorosis at Sherry's, November, 1894.



Mrs. Croly's life-work as a writer had gone forward hand in hand with her club interests, and, having finished the foundation work of the two federations, she devoted her time to the preparation of her massive volume on the "Growth of the Woman's Club Movement," which is a monument to her patient industry, and the only permanent record of the development of women's clubs in America.

She sleeps—but each woman who to-day shares the benefit and the responsive pleasure of club life, should place a leaf in the garland for "Jenny June."



From Marie Etienne Burns

"Work is a true savior, and the not knowing how is more the cause of idleness than the love of it."—MRS. CROLY.

The idea of a State Industrial School for Girls originated with Mrs. Croly, and at a spring meeting of the Executive Committee of the New York State Federation of Women's Clubs, held in 1898, she suggested that the first work of the Philanthropic Committee for the year be an endeavor to establish a State Industrial School for wayward, not criminal, young girls of tenement-house neighborhoods. Soon after this Mrs. Croly met with a serious accident and was obliged to give up all active work. She decided to go to Europe, hoping to be benefited by a stay abroad. Just before her departure Mrs. Croly wrote asking me to present the proposed industrial-school plan to the Convention for its endorsement. The next day I called upon her to discuss matters. I found her confined to her sofa with, a crutch beside her, and evidently suffering much pain; but she seemed to be thinking less about herself than about the work that was so close to her heart. She urged me to take up the work which, she was regretfully obliged to abandon, and was most enthusiastic over it.

Mrs. Croly said: "Those who have worked among the poor in large cities are aware of the value of orderly and systematic industrial training for girls of irresponsible parentage, between the years of twelve and eighteen. These girls are often bright and attractive, but they are usually self-willed, lacking in judgment, and ignorant of every useful art, as well as of all social and domestic standards that lend themselves to the development of a true womanhood. Their homes are usually unworthy of the name, often scenes of disorder, not infrequently of violence, from which their only escape is the street. Their vanity and unbridled desire for low forms of pleasure expose them to all kinds of evil influences, and the first steps in a downward career are taken without at all knowing whither they lead. The most dangerous element in the lives of such girls is their ignorance. It bars all avenues to respectable employment and deprives them of self-respect, which grows with ability to maintain oneself and one's integrity in the face of adverse circumstances. In putting the knowledge of the simplest art or industry in possession of the untrained, unformed girl you supply an almost certain defence against that which lurks to destroy."

I fully agreed with Mrs. Croly. My many years of experience as a worker among the poor of New York City had taught me the importance, and indeed the necessity of just such a school, and I gladly promised to carry forward the good work.

Mrs. Croly said in parting: "I can truly say that during the whole of my working life in New York, a period of more than forty years, my heart has bled for these poor neglected, untrained girls, who yet have the elements of a divine womanhood and motherhood within them, though undeveloped and hidden by the rankest weeds and growth."

At the Convention in New York City, held in 1901, I presented the Industrial School project, and the plan received the unanimous endorsement of all those present. It was, however, deemed wiser to omit the word "wayward," as the school was to be preventive and in no sense reformatory. A Committee was formed, of which Mrs. Croly was made Honorary Chairman; and the work upon a State Industrial School for Girls was begun.

It was my desire as Acting Chairman of the Committee that the movement should carry at all times the banner bearing the name of its inceptor, a name that would always suggest not failure but success. While seemingly insurmountable obstacles at once arose, they were more or less overcome as the preparations and work of the Committee progressed. And at the time of Mrs. Croly's death the project had reached a point more hopeful than assured, resulting in the establishment of at least one school which should stimulate the State Legislature into a realization of the needs of the young girls of the tenement-house neighborhoods, so that some time in the future there might be provided through State legislation, on a broad plan, the State Industrial or Trade School for Girls, the idea of which was conceived by Jenny June.



From Mrs. Croly's Letter to Mrs. Burns, Relative to the Proposed Industrial School for Girls

222 WEST 23RD STREET, Feb. 28, 1900.

My dear Mrs. Burns:

There is only one point that I would have emphasized, and that I do not find included in your otherwise excellent statement. It is the moral influence of a training for self-support. Ignorance and idleness lead to vice and crime; and a Technical Training School would do more to remedy the Social Evil and raise the standard of morals than all other influences combined. The fact that work is the great purifier is what I wish could have been embodied in the plan presented.

Yours with real regard. J.C.C.



From Izora Chandler

How can one picture all that this one woman was to the hundreds of other women who loved her: the gentle demeanor, the thoughtful conversation, the high thinking evidenced not less in her choice of subject than in the fitness of word and phrase which gave a distinctive charm to all her utterances, whether public or private?

When first meeting Mrs. Croly one could hardly believe that so gentle-voiced, slight a creature could have accomplished the pioneering accredited to her in the enlargement of the mental life of women. Drawn to her at the first greeting one was soon convinced of the hidden forcefulness of her nature which could be likened to the resistless, unyielding under-current, rather than to the wave which visibly and noisily assails the shore.

Present or absent, the thought of her was magnetic. While charming the heart she convinced the mind with argument. Her power did not absorb and minify; it enlarged, enlivened, and became a source of inspiration. After talking with her, impossibilities became possible to the timid, the diffident were encouraged to dare, and those who were strong at coming went away valorous. Her dignity and ready decision when presiding over a public assembly were noteworthy. She became a stateswoman in whatever concerned her sex; an earnest soul pleading for love among co-workers, and for more and yet more of love, for only in that atmosphere can the heart of woman come into its rightful sovereignty, urging that slights be forgotten, aggressions overlooked, and that the fair mantle of love be spread tenderly over all.

An earnest devotee of the best and highest in art, she seemed to have an insatiable desire after the beautiful; and was never more serene and lucid of mind than when considering this scheme, and encouraging with rich appreciation those who were in the field.

Her store of knowledge was phenomenal. She was a constant learner, an unwearied seeker after wisdom. When those who had given special study to any subject addressed the house over which she presided, they received her most flattering attention, and in the brief afterword of the chairman she indicated intimate knowledge of the matter in hand, often giving comprehensive data and suggesting fresh lines for consideration. No wonder that the finest minds were attracted to her; that thinkers desired her acceptance of their thoughts; that active workers sought her cooeperation and leadership. Quiet and forceful; competent as a critic, but ready with encouragement; simple in manner, easily approached; patient with those who appealed to her, seeking rather than waiting to be sought; abundantly appreciative of others, her memory becomes an abiding impulse towards high and generous thought, towards simple, worthy living.



From Janie C.P. Jones

Before my friend's last trip to England I went to bid her good-bye, and among her parting words were the following which I never can forget:

"I dislike going so far from my friends. To me they are the most precious things on earth, the greatest gift the world can bestow; to me they have been like flowers all along my path, and their sweet odor of influence has made me better every day. I cannot prize them too highly, for all I am I owe to them."

To have known one who so highly appreciated the value of friendship, who knew the true meaning of the word "friend," and who possessed the rare gift of knowing how to retain friends, was an inspiration, and an influence which added to the value of life. I think of her now as having "gone into her garden to gather lilies for her Beloved."



From Catherine Weed Barnes Ward

My task is at once sad and pleasant: sad, because I speak of a dearly loved and lost friend; pleasant, because I am asked to bear my testimony as to her worth.

Mrs. Croly's friendship and unselfish kindness began with my entrance over twenty years ago into club life, and from then onward she was continually urging and helping me towards increased intellectual effort. Through her active inspiration I joined Sorosis, the Woman's Press Club of New York, and other American organizations, as well as the Society of American Women in London, the Women Journalists of London, and various English organizations, besides taking part in the International Congress of Women held in London three or four years ago.

Mrs. Croly lived constantly in two generations, her own and the next one; her wonderful mental vitality setting the paces of many pulses, besides those which stirred her own brain. I know much of the actual labor she accomplished for her sex, both here and in England, but even nobler than that was the high ideal she set them in her own life and the inspiration of her personality to younger women.

To those she called special friends her loyalty was unswerving, true as the needle to the pole, and as one blest with such friendship I feel the influence of her beautiful, unselfish living will be ever with me, though something has gone out of my life, never to be replaced. Her daughter, Mrs. Vida Croly Sidney, worthily carries on the traditions and work of her noble mother, and her friends feel that in her there is a living tie between the untiring spirit laboring now, we may well believe, in another existence and the work so loved by that spirit while on earth.

A true heart, a generous nature, a broad mind, and keen mental acumen are qualities that do not die with their possessor; they bless the world to which she has gone and that she left behind.

We can best honor her memory by carrying on her work and by leaving the world better and happier for our having lived in it.



From a Letter to the Memorial Committee from Sara J. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood)

I feel Mrs. Croly's death very deeply. The sacred holiday season, dedicated from time immemorial to household joy and mirth, and calling for Christian gratitude and hope, was already saddened by bereavements, and her death—absolutely unlooked for by me—made it melancholy and mournful.

"She should have died hereafter." I did not dream when I saw her last that she was to solve the great mystery before me. Though feeble, there seemed so much of the old energetic, enthusiastic self about her; and I parted from her hoping to see her soon in renewed health and strength.

She always had a peculiar fascination for me: her soft, sweet voice; her strong though quiet will; her unfailing faith in all things good; her loyalty to her sex. I think her pass-word to the realm of rest and reward must have been, "I loved my fellow-woman."

35 Lockwood Avenue, New Rochelle, January 6, 1902.



From a Letter to the Memorial Committee from Jennie de la M. Lozier

Mrs. Croly was a woman of uncommon intuition and sympathy. She took wide and far-reaching views of woman's possible development and usefulness. She believed in organization as a factor in this development, and spared no effort to form and maintain, even at personal sacrifice, the woman's club or federation. She was always generous and warm-hearted, of boundless hospitality, never more genially herself than when her friends gathered about her in her attractive home and she could make them happy. I shall always recall with pleasure the rare moments when she talked with me of her real life, her hopes and her plans. I believe that she constantly exerted a noble influence, and that she stood for all that makes for woman's unselfish helpfulness, courage and independence.

New York, February 10, 1902.



From Genie H. Rosenfeld

In the early days of the Woman's Press Club, when it was divided upon the question of a suitable meeting place, and undisciplined members were resigning in appreciable numbers, Mrs. Croly surprised me one day by declaring that the club had never been stronger than it was at that hour.

"Why, Mrs. Croly!" I exclaimed, "we have only a handful of women left."

"My dear," she said, "we have lopped off all our dead wood. The branches that remain may be few, but they are vigorous, and from them will spring up a tree that will be a glory to us."

This little saying of Mrs. Croly's has come back to me and been of use many times, and it has often enabled me to understand the benefit of lopping off dead wood and starting anew.



Contributed to the New York Tribune by S. A. Lattimore

The sad announcement of the death of Mrs. Jane Cunningham Croly recalls a delightful incident of several summers ago when I had the pleasure of meeting her at Long Branch.

In the course of a most interesting conversation I ventured to ask her to give me the origin of her well-known nom-de-plume of "Jenny June." In her bright, sympathetic way, which all who knew her can describe, she said:

"Yes, I will tell you. In my early girlhood I knew a young clergyman who was in the habit of occasionally visiting our house. One day he came to bid us good-bye, saying that he was going to a Western city to reside. As he bid me goodbye he gave me a little book. It was a volume of B. F. Taylor's poems, called 'January and June.' The little book opened of itself at a page containing verses entitled 'The Beautiful River.' An introductory paragraph read thus: 'On such a night, in such a June, who has not sat side by side with somebody for all the world like Jenny June? Maybe it was years ago, but it was some time. Maybe you had quite forgotten it, but you will be the better for remembering. Maybe she has gone on before where it is June all the year, and never January at all,—that God forbid. There it was, and then it was, and thus it was.' This stanza was marked in pencil:

'Jenny June,' then I said, 'let us linger no more On the banks of the beautiful river; Let the boat be unmoored, and muffled the oar, And we'll steal into heaven together. If the angel on duty our coming descries You have nothing to do but throw off the disguise That you wore when you wandered with me; And the sentry will say: "Welcome back to the skies, We long have been waiting for thee!"'

On the margin was written, 'You are the Juniest Jenny I know.'

"The years of my girlhood passed on, and with their passing faded away all memory of the young minister. Later there came to me, as I suppose there comes to every young girl, the impulse to write, and when some early efforts of mine were judged worthy to be published, I was confronted for the first time with the question of a signature. Shrinking from seeing my own name in print, by some witchery of memory the words 'Jenny June' suddenly occurred to me, and that, as you know, has been my name ever since."

After a little pause Mrs. Croly said: "Now that I have answered your question I must tell you something else. Thirty years after I had assumed my nom-de-plume a gray-haired stranger called at my house one day and asked to see me. The name he gave recalled no one I had ever known, and in meeting there was no recognition on either side. But he proceeded in a straightforward way to explain the object of his visit: 'For the last thirty years,' he said, 'since my removal from this city, I have lived in the West; naturally, I have been a constant reader of Eastern papers, and particularly have I read every article I have ever seen bearing the signature of "Jenny June." I have made many efforts, but always without success, to ascertain who she was, and whether the name was real or fictitious. Somehow I have never forgotten the little girl I knew before I went West, and to whom I gave a little volume of poems with something written on a page that contained a stanza that I greatly admired about "Jenny June." I have wondered if she had become the famous writer, and upon my return to my native city, after so long an absence, I have sought you simply to ask if you are that little girl.'"



The Fairies' Gifts

By Ellen M. Staples

To an English home one bright Yuletide While Christmas bells rang loud and wide

Came a babe with the gentle eyes of a dove And a face as fair as a thought of love.

"Now, God be thanked," the old nurse cried, "That the child is born at Christmas-tide;

"For the blessed sake of Mary's Son God's benison falls on lives begun

"When Christmas music fills the air And men are joyful everywhere.

"And as to Him came Wise Men three Offering gifts on bended knee

"So to one born at the Holy Time On land or sea, in every clime,

"Come three Good Fairies, and each one bears A gift to brighten the coming years."

The pallid mother gently smiled And looked upon her tender child.

"Good nurse, the legend is full sweet; And I lay my babe at His dear feet

"Whose human Sonhood is aware Of the painful bliss that mothers bear.

"I can well believe that heaven may Send gifts to the child of Christmas Day."

Tired by her flight from Paradise The baby shut her wondering eyes,

Nor knew that 'round the cradle stood, To bless the babe, three Fairies good.

The First bent over the cradle head; "These are my gifts to her," she said:

"A sunny nature, a voice of song, And may faithful friends uncounted throng!"

The Second murmured in accents low: "The path will be steep and rough, I know,

"So I give her a heart that is brave and strong, That will patiently work, though the way be long;

"And though life may fill them with toil and care Her hands shall weaker ones' burdens share."

Then stood the Third for a moment's space To thoughtfully gaze on the baby face,

And over her own a radiance came As she softly said: "My gift is a name.

"Though born while the earth lies spread with snow The babe is a summer-child, and so

"The sunny nature, the voice of song, The helpful hands, true heart and strong

"With Nature's self should be in tune, Sweet child, I name thee Jenny June."



From Margaret Ravenhill

Jane Cunningham Croly left upon the last century an ineffaceable record. For industrious and successful work in journalism she probably had no peer. In a speech before the Woman's Press Club not long since, she said: "When a woman has written enough to fill a room, she feels like burning it instead of preserving it in scrap-books." Probably no woman of her day and generation has done more or better work than our "Jenny June." No woman had more diversity of gifts; she was equally at home in the editorial chair, or the reportorial office; as a speaker she excelled. In the old days we who knew her best would sometimes notice a hesitancy of speech that would occasionally cloud a brilliant idea; but if she hesitated she was never lost, and the idea was worth waiting for. She was always clear, logical, forceful in expression, and exhaustive in argument. Thoroughness seems the word to express the character of Mrs. Croly. She was quick to catch the meaning of the uttered thoughts of others, keen in analysis, and executive in all work. Witness the many organizations which she helped originate. Her long years of rule as president of Sorosis were of inestimable value to that "mother of women's clubs." Her great "History of the Club Movement" should be in the hands of every woman in the land.

Of Mrs. Croly's personality it is a pleasure to speak. Every woman who enjoyed the privilege of her friendship felt the magnetism and charm of a rare nature; while, with all her force and power, there was a childishness about her that impressed one with the idea that the naivete and innocence of childhood had never been wholly lost in the woman. I think it was in some measure owing to the fact that she was so near-sighted that there was a kind of appealing hesitancy about her movements that impelled you to her aid.

Mrs. Croly's home was one of refinement and good taste in every detail, and there she was at her best. Always a charming hostess, she made every guest feel that he or she was the one most eagerly expected; there were the hearty greeting, the few low words of welcome, the sunny smile that transformed her face into positive beauty. Her Sunday evenings at home came nearer in character to the French salon than any others in New York. There were the most delightful people to be met: the gifted minds of our own land and Europe were among her guests. But Mrs. Croly's proudest boast was that she was a woman's woman.



From T. C. Evans, in the New York Times

When I joined the World staff of writers, in 1860, a few weeks after the foundation of that journal, I found Jenny June already there. She did not often appear in the office in person, the lady auxiliary in journalism not being so familiar a figure as it now is, and she had not yet adopted her pretty nom-de-plume, but her husband, David G. Croly, held an official post on the staff as city editor, and her contributions, which were invariably well written and interesting, appeared from the first in the World columns, and as the years went on while she and Mr. Croly remained associated with it, with increasing frequency. They were written by a woman mainly for women, and the maids and matrons of her country over all its area from ocean to ocean and from "lands of sun to lands of snow" have never been addressed by one of their sex whom they came to know better or to hold in higher esteem. Her work assumed no pretentious or high importance, but was sweet and wholesome, sensible, and a mirror of the nature out of which it proceeded. The name Jenny June, which she adopted a few years later, became a beloved household word throughout the land, perhaps more widely known than that of any lady journalist who has ever wrought in it.

Mrs. Croly's social dispositions and her aptitude for gathering interesting people around her were gracious endowments of nature's bestowal, as strongly marked in her youth as in her maturer years, when she gradually came to have a wider stage on which to display them. Her pretty little drawing-rooms, somewhere on the west side near Grove Street, are well remembered by me, and first and last I met in them a goodly number of people well worthy to be remembered, some with their trophies of success yet to win, but their merit divined by their clever hostess, perhaps before it had obtained any full recognition elsewhere. Many also came who had won their spurs and epaulets and shone bravely in the bright glitter of both. In her little unpretending salon of that day might be met the brilliant young Edmund Clarence Stedman, in the morning glow of his poetic fame; Bayard Taylor, risen into the mid-forenoon of his fame, with his Orient lyrics published and his translation of "Faust" well begun; perhaps Phoebe and Alice Cary, though on this point I cannot be certain, and many another of note and distinction in that time, her hospitality taking in all arts, and all the presentable workers in them, so that poets, painters, sculptors, singers, actors were equally welcome, as were those who brought to her only their bright young countenances and winning smiles. Her later drawing-rooms, when she had removed up town, nearer to the Mayfair of society, became widely celebrated, and she founded something perhaps as near to a salon modeled after the traditional Parisian standards as any that America has known.

Mrs. Croly is recognized as the chief among the founders of Sorosis, the most celebrated woman's club in the world, and parent of the innumerable organizations of like sect which have sprung up since their renowned progenitor became with fewer vicissitudes and trials than might have been anticipated firmly planted on its feet and attested its self-supporting and self-reliant character. No social development of the modern period is more striking than the swift multiplication of women's clubs, not in this country alone, but in others, and they have shown a power of beneficent work most advantageous to the community at large, which even the most sanguine among their promoters could not have anticipated. They have also shown that women can legislate and administrate and rise to the point of order and lay things on the table in a manner as parliamentary and self-restrained as men. For such testimony the world should be thankful, as it never got anything of the kind before. Among the founders of this now most impressive group of social organizations no name stands out more brightly and conspicuously than that of Jane Cunningham Croly.

Her recent death, though a surprise and shock to her innumerable friends, came when she had passed her seventy-second birthday, and it cannot therefore be said that she passed away with her work uncompleted. It was fully and most worthily performed, and was the fruit of a systematic diligence never remitted, and in which few of her sex in any period could have exceeded her. Her memory is fragrant as the month from which she took her nom-de-plume, and will at least be cherished by those whom her gentle discourse, continued for more than a generation, has entertained and instructed.



From St. Clair McKelway, in the Brooklyn Eagle

The death of Jane Cunningham Croly, noticed in Tuesday's Eagle, involves the loss of a woman of leadership who put a good deal of help into others' lives. Born in 1829, she began at seventeen to write for newspapers. Her topics were, for a wonder, practical, the young too generally beginning with abstract, academical or recondite subjects. Hers were "fashions" in dress, fads in food, fancies and foibles in decoration etc. From them she advanced to more philosophical or general fields, but on all she wrote was the stamp of applicability to contemporaneous life.

In the middle, later, and more genial period of her life she did more talking than writing. And her talking was always earnest, direct, sincere, with a gleam of hope and a note of wisdom in it—the union of experience and reflection. Had it been reported it would have made for her a literary name: but she was content, or constrained, to limit her work to the platform, or to the circle of existence affected by it.

As a clubwoman Mrs. Croly achieved the eminence almost of a pioneer. It can be shown that a club or two of women had a titular beginning before "Sorosis," but that was the original society started by her on the theory that there were opportunities and conditions in club life, on an educational or literary basis, of which women could well avail themselves. Mrs. Croly sympathized with the more earnest purposes entering into her idea, and was in little related to any sensational, spectacular, or faddish features that may here or there become attached to it. She was a believer in seriousness, an exemplar of industry, a devotee to system, and a very remarkably punctual, effective and straightforward writer. Her flight was never very high, but it was always progressive, and her regulation of her pen by the precise rules that govern presswork was entitled to distinct praise. She could always be trusted to keep within her topic and herself behind it, and she understood the art of putting things to her public in a way to discover to them their own thoughts as well as to denote her own.

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.

THE END