Part 40

The Longshores took Anna into their hearts and home at once, and many of her happiest hours were spent with them. "We felt toward her," Doctor Longshore said, "as if she were our own child. We were the first strangers to show an interest in her welfare and future plans, and she returned our friendship with confidence and love." She was always so buoyant, so full of vitality and gayety, that her visits were eagerly anticipated, and for hours at a time she would entertain her new friends with vivid and droll accounts of her experiences at home and in school and of her attempts to make money. And as she had won her way into the hearts of her audience, at those first meetings, so now she kept the Longshores enthralled, making them laugh at one moment and cry at another. One night she had a horrible dream to relate.

"I had been reading an account of the horrors of the slave system at its worst," she said. "After going to bed, I was long in falling asleep. Finally I slept and dreamed that I was a slave girl, and, oh, the agony of the knowledge! The hot sun scorched my burning skin as I toiled in the fields, with almost no clothing to soften the sun's heat. I was hungry, but there was insufficient food. At last I was dressed in clean, showy clothes and led to the auction-block, where I was auctioned off to the highest bidder. He led me away in triumph to even worse experiences, and when I woke up I could not throw off the horror of the awful nightmare."

Seeing her tremble under the misery of the recollection, Doctor Longshore soothed her by saying that the dream was a natural result of the highly colored account she had been reading before going to sleep, that all slaves were not by any means treated in such a cruel manner, and at last she grew calm. But whenever in future she spoke on the subject of slavery this terrible memory would come back to her so vividly that it would intensify her power to speak with conviction.

For several Sundays she went regularly to the "Progressive Friends'" meeting and spoke with unvarying success. Then she was invited to go to Mullica Hill, New Jersey, to speak on the subject, "Woman's Work." After discussing the matter with her mother and the Longshores, she accepted the invitation and set herself to prepare the lecture which she was to give. Then, on the first Sunday in April, the seventeen-year-old orator went to her trial experience as an invited speaker. By that time her praises had been widely sung, and when she rose and saw her audience there was a sea of upturned, eager faces looking into hers. Speaking from the depths of her own experience, she held the audience in breathless silence for over an hour. There was, it was said, an indescribable pathos in her full, rich voice that, aside from what she said, touched the hearts of her hearers and moved many to tears, while all were spellbound, and at the close of her address no one moved. Finally a man rose and voiced the feeling of the people.

"We will not disperse until the speaker promises to address us again this evening," he said, and a burst of applause greeted his statement. A starry-eyed girl stood and bowed her acknowledgment and agreed to speak again. As the audience dispersed Anna heard some one say, "If Lucretia Mott had made that speech it would be thought a great one."

As she promised, in the evening she spoke again on slavery, with equal success. A collection which was taken up for her amounted to several dollars, the first financial result of what was to be her golden resource.

But Anna had no thought of doing public speaking as her only means of earning her living. She continued to look for positions, but without success. Finally she took a district school in Bucks County, at a monthly salary of twenty-five dollars. So interested was she in the "Progressive Friends'" Sunday meetings that she went home every second week to attend them, and her speeches always won applause from an audience that had learned to anticipate the impassioned statements of the bright-eyed girl who was so much younger and so much more intense than any other speaker.

And now she began to receive invitations to speak in other places. On her eighteenth birthday she spoke in a small village about thirty miles out of Philadelphia, when she fairly electrified her hearers by the force of her arguments and the form in which she presented them. She continued to teach, although during her summer vacation she made many speeches in New Jersey. On one occasion she spoke in the open air, in a beautiful grove where hundreds had come to hear "the girl orator" give her views on temperance and slavery. Her earnestness and conviction of the truth of what she said made a profound impression, and even those who later criticized her speech as being the product of an immature and superficial mind were held as by a spell while she spoke, and secretly admired her while they openly ridiculed her arguments. At another time she was asked to speak at the laying of the corner-stone of a new Methodist church. The clergymen who gathered together were inclined to be severe in their judgment of the remarks of a "slip of a girl." Anna knew that and resolved to speak with more than usual pathos and power. When she began her address amusement was evident on the faces of the dignified men looking at her. Gradually they grew more interested, the silence became intense, and when the men rose to leave they were subdued, and some of them even were not ashamed to be seen wiping away tears. One of them introduced himself to her and with a cordial hand-shake said: "Miss Dickinson, I have always ridiculed Woman's Rights, but, so help me God, I never shall again."

But this time the young orator could not help feeling the power she had to sway great masses of people, and with a thrill of joy she began to believe that perhaps in this work which she loved above anything else in the world she would some day find her vocation, for she was already receiving commendation from men and women of a high order of intelligence and being given larger contributions as a result of her speeches.

The country was at that time in the beginning of its Civil War period, and much was written and said on the issue of the hour. At a Kennett Square meeting, where hot debates were held on the burning question of the day, Anna was one of the speakers, and one of the press notices on the following day said:

"... The next speaker was Miss Anna Dickinson, of Philadelphia, handsome, of an expressive countenance, plainly dressed, and eloquent beyond her years. After the listless, monotonous harangues of the previous part of the day, the distinct, earnest tones of this juvenile Joan of Arc were very sweet and charming. During her discourse, which was frequently interrupted, Miss Dickinson maintained her presence of mind, and uttered her radical sentiments with resolution and plainness. Those who did not sympathize with her remarks were softened by her simplicity and solemnity. Her speech was decidedly the speech of the evening.... Miss Dickinson, we understand, is a member of the Society of Friends, and her speech came in the shape of a retort to remarks which were contrary to her own beliefs. With her usual clear-cut conviction and glowing oratory, Miss Dickinson said that:

"'We are told to maintain constitutions because they are constitutions, and compromises because they are compromises. But what are compromises?' asked the young speaker, 'and what was laid down in these constitutions? Eminent lawgivers have said that certain great fundamental ideas of right are common to the world, and that all laws of man's making which trample on those ideas are null and void--wrong to obey, but right to disobey. The Constitution of the United States sat upon the neck of those rights, recognizes human slavery, and makes the souls of men articles of purchase and sale.'"

So clear of mind and expression was the young orator that her statements sank as deeply into the minds of her hearers as if spoken by a far more learned person, and from that time her intense nature had found its true outlet, and her longing to provide her mother with some of the comforts which had so long been denied her was soon to be realized.

In that same year of her speech at Kennett Square, on an evening in late February, she spoke in Concert Hall, Philadelphia, before an audience of about eight hundred persons. For two hours she spoke, without notes and with easy fluency. There were many well-known men and women there, who were delighted with what they were pleased to call a young girl's notable performance. But Anna herself was far from pleased with her speech. Afterward, on reaching the Longshores', she threw herself into a chair with an air of utter despondency, and, in response to their praise, only shook her head.

"I am mortified," she declared. "I spoke too long, and what I said lacked arrangement, order, and point. And before such an audience!"

This incident shows clearly that, despite all the flattery which was showered on her at that time, she did not lose her sense of balance, but knew with a keen instinct whether she had achieved her end or not.

And now winter was over and spring had come with its spirit of new birth and fulfilment. And, as the buds began to swell and open, the strong will and fresh young spirit of Anna Dickinson asserted itself in a desire for more profitable daily work, for as yet she was not able to give up other employment for the public speaking which brought her in uneven returns. She disliked the confinement and routine of teaching so much that she decided to try a new kind of work, and secured a place in the Mint, where she described her duties vividly to her interested friends.

"I sat on a stool," she said, "from seven o'clock in the morning to six at night for twenty-eight dollars a month. The atmosphere of the room was close and impure, as it was necessary to keep all windows and doors closed in the adjusting-room, for the least draught of air would vary the scales." Not a very congenial occupation for the independent nature of the young orator, but, although she disliked the work, she was very skilful at it, and soon became the fastest adjuster in the Mint. But she could not bear the confinement of the adjusting-room and changed to the coining-room, yet even that was impossible to a spirit which had seen a vision of creative work and of ability to do it. Then, too, she thoroughly disliked the men with whom she was thrown and their beliefs, knowing them to be opposed to principles which she held sacred; so when, in November, she made a speech on the events of the war, in which she stated her views so frankly that when they came to the ears of Government officials who did not agree with her she was dismissed from the Mint, she was rather pleased than troubled.

Through the remainder of the winter she continued to speak in various suburbs of the city, not always to sympathetic audiences, for so radical were some of her assertions, especially coming from the lips of a mere girl, that she was hissed time and again for her assertions. Despite this, she was becoming well known as a speaker of great ability, and as the war went on, with its varying successes for the North and South, she thought with less intensity on the subjects of the future of the negro and the wrongs of women, and became more deeply absorbed in questions of national importance, which was a fortunate thing for her. She was enthusiastic, eloquent, young and pretty, all of which characteristics made her a valuable ally for any cause. Mr. Garrison, the noted Abolitionist, heard her speak twice, and was so delighted with her manner and ability that he asked for an introduction to her, and invited her to visit Boston and make his house her home while there. She thanked him with pretty enthusiasm and accepted, but before going to Boston was persuaded to give the lecture in Philadelphia, for which she had been dismissed from the Mint. A ten-cent admission was charged, and Judge Pierce, one of the early advocates of Woman's Rights, presided and introduced the young speaker. The house was crowded, and this time she was satisfied with her lecture, while the eager Longshores and her mother were filled with a just pride. After all expenses were paid she was handed a check for a bigger sum of money than she had ever owned before. The largest share of it was given at once to her mother, then, after a serious discussion with Doctor Longshore, Anna decided to spend the remainder on her first silk dress. Despite oratory and advanced views, the girl of eighteen was still human and feminine, and it is to be doubted whether any results of her labors ever gave her more satisfaction than that bit of finery for her public appearances.

And now the young orator went to Boston, where through Mr. Garrison's influence she was invited to speak in Theodore Parker's pulpit, as leading reformers were then doing. She also spoke in the Music Hall on "The National Crisis," and that lecture was the hardest trial she ever experienced. For two days before it she could not sleep or eat, and answered questions like one in a dream, and Mr. Garrison and those friends who had been confident of her ability to hold any audience began to feel extremely nervous. If she should make a failure now at the beginning of her career, it would be critical for her future.

The night came, and with ill-concealed nervousness Anna put on the new silk dress, shook her heavy curls into place, and with resolute courage went to the hall, where, on mounting the platform, she noted the most tremendous audience she had ever before faced. Mr. Garrison opened the meeting by reading a chapter of the Bible, then he used up as much time as possible in remarks, in order to make the best of a bad situation, for he felt that she was not in a state of mind or body to hold the coldly critical audience before her. While he read and spoke poor Anna behind him waited to be presented, in an agony of nervousness which she struggled not to show. Then came the singing of the "Negro Boatman's Song of Whittier" by a quartet, accompanied by the organ. At last, with an easy smile, which concealed his real feelings, Mr. Garrison turned to introduce Anna, and she rose and walked forward to the front of the platform, looking more immature and girlish than ever before. Her first sentences were halting, disconnected, her fingers twined and twisted nervously around the handkerchief she held; then she saw a sympathetic upturned face in the front row of the audience staring up at her. Something in the face roused Anna to a determined effort. Throwing herself into her subject, she soon was pouring out a passionate appeal for a broader national life and action. Gone were fear and self-consciousness, gone all but determination to make her audience feel as she felt, believe as she believed, in the interest of humanity and the highest ideals. For over an hour she held that coldly critical mass of New England hearers as if by a magic spell, then the vast audience rose and gave vent to their emotion by the singing of "America," and then persons of distinction and wealth crowded around the speaker of the evening with thanks and praise. To one and all the young orator, whose eyes were still shining with enthusiasm, replied, simply: "I thank you. The subject is very near my heart," and as those who met her turned away they could not hide their amazement at the ability of a young person who looked so immature in her girlish beauty and freshness.

This was the beginning of a period of success. She delivered the Boston lecture in several other New England cities, and had many fine press notices on it, one of which closed with the following sentences:

"Her whole appearance and manner were decidedly attractive, earnest, and expressive. Her lecture was well arranged, logical, and occasionally eloquent, persuasive, and pathetic."

That was the time when every woman with a tender heart and a chance to show it for the benefit of the wounded soldiers served her apprenticeship in some hospital, and Anna was one of them. With keen sympathy she nursed and comforted the sick men, who told her freely about their hardships and sufferings, as well as the motives which led them to go into the army, and she learned their opinion of war and of life on the battle-fields. From this experience she gained much priceless material which she later used most successfully.

She was now beginning to be known as much for her youth and personal charm as for the subject-matter of her lectures, and to her unbounded joy in October, 1862, she received one hundred dollars and many flattering press notices for a speech given before the Boston Fraternity Lyceum. This success encouraged her to plan a series of lectures to be given in various parts of the East, especially in New England, from which she hoped to gain substantial results. But in making her plans she had failed to reckon with the humor of the people who under the stress of war had little interest even in the most thrilling lectures, and she traveled from place to place with such meager returns that she became perfectly disheartened, and, worse than that, she was almost penniless.

When she had filled her last engagement of the series, for which she was to receive the large sum of ten dollars, at Concord, New Hampshire, she realized with a sinking heart that unless she could turn the tide of her affairs quickly she must again seek another occupation. The resolute girl was almost disheartened, and she confessed to a friend later:

"No one knows how I felt and suffered that winter, penniless and alone, with a scanty wardrobe, suffering with cold, weariness, and disappointment. I wandered about on the trains day after day among strangers, seeking employment for an honest living and failing to find it. I would have gone home, but had not the means. I had borrowed money to commence my journey, promising to remit soon; failing to do so, I could not ask again. Beyond my Concord meeting, all was darkness. I had no further plans."

With positive want staring her in the face, in debt for the trip which she had taken on a venture, and shrinkingly sensitive in regard to her inability to aid her mother more lavishly, there was need of quick action. Alone in a boarding-house room, Anna reviewed her resources and the material she had on hand for a new and more taking lecture.