Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/308

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288
History of Woman Suffrage.

history of the suffrage movement in this country. There too she met Mrs. Merrycoyf, a bright, accomplished woman, a sister of Josephine Butler, and like her, engaged in English reforms. She had many discussions with Mrs. Proby, the wife of the English Consul, who thought Mrs. Davis was wasting her efforts for the elevation of woman, as she considered it a hopeless case to make women rational and self-reliant. However, before they parted, Mrs. Davis inspired her with some faith in her own sex. I read a very interesting letter from Mrs. Proby acknowledging the benefit derived from her acquaintance with Mrs. Davis, in giving her new hope for woman. At Rome she received the blessing of the Pope, and met Pére Hyacinthe and his charming wife, and attended one of his lectures, but the crowd was so great she could not get in, so she went the Sunday after to hear the prayers for the Pope and the Church against the influence of the dangerous Pére. She says: "It was a most impressive occasion, the immense crowd, the grand music swelling through the arches of that vast cathedral, the responses of the ten thousand voices, rolling like the great tidal waves of the mighty ocean, were altogether sublime beyond description." At Paris she met Mrs. Crawford, wife of the corresponding editor of The London Times, a woman of fine conversational powers, and a brilliant writer, now the Paris correspondent of The New York Tribune. She found her a woman of very liberal opinions. At one of her breakfasts she met Martin, the historian, and several members of the Assembly. She also visited the Countess Delacoste, who sympathized deeply with the republican movement, and had concealed Clusaret three months in her house. There she met several distinguished Russians and Frenchmen. In London she attended one of Mrs. Peter Taylor's receptions, where she met Mrs. Margaret Lucas, sister of John Bright, and other notables. She visited Josephine Butler at her home in Liverpool. Friends sent her tickets of admission to the lady's gallery, in the House of Commons, where she heard Jacob Bright make his opening speech on the woman's disability bill, and Fawcett, the blind member, also on the same bill. And with all these distinguished people, in different countries, speaking different languages, she found the same interest in the progressive ideas that had gladdened and intensified her own life.

On the 29th of May she sailed for America, and reached her home in safety, but the disease that had been threatening her for years (rheumatic gout) began to develop itself, until in the autumn she was confined to her room, and unable at times even to walk. It was