akrooms at her largely
attended literary receptions in Washington.

She had been told by those who loved her that a divorced woman would be
shunned by all cultured women and be the butt of ridicule for
fashionable men; and that as she must earn a living she should sew or
embroider or act as a nurse. She certainly was too weak to wash clothes
or care for a kitchen. But within her soul there was that yearning to do
something worth while which seems given to almost every woman. Few women
reach old age without feeling that somehow the great object of living
has not been attained. The ambitions to which a man can give free wings,
a woman must suppress or hide in deference to custom or competition.
As yet she has seldom under our civilization seemed to do her best or
accomplish the one great ideal of her heart and intellect. While she has
the same God-given impulses, visions, and sense of power, she builds no
cathedrals, spans no rivers, digs no mines, founds no nations, builds
no steamships, and seldom appears in painting, sculpture, banking, or
oratory. She is conscious of the native talent, sees the ideals, but
must hide them until it is too late. But this woman from the interior
of New York State was an exception; like Charlotte Bronte, she said,
"I will write." Like the same great author, she had her rebuffs and
returned manuscripts, and all the more since at that time women were
unknown in the newspaper business. But her invariable answer to critics
and discouraged friends was, "I will." When in 1883 she said, "I will,"
to the great editor who became her second husband, the President of the
United States wrote a personal letter to say that, while he wished her
joy, he could but admit that it would be a "distinct loss to humanity
to have such a brilliant genius hidden by marriage."

In an automobile ride from Lake Champlain to New York I saw the city
of Burlington, Vermont, with its university, where Barnes had said,
"I will." At St. Johnsbury the whole city advertises Fairbanks, who
said, "I will." At Brattleboro the hum of industry ever repeats the name
of the boy Esty, who said, "I will"; at Holyoke, the powerful canals
seem to reflect the faces of Chase and Whitney, who, when poor men,
said, "I will." At Springfield the signs on the stores, banks, and
factories suggest the young Chapin, who made the city prosperous with
his "I will." At New Haven Whitney's determination stands out in great
streets and university bui