Chapter VI

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COLLEGE DAYS.

New York Central College, at McGrawville, Cortland County, seems to have been the forerunner of Cornell University. Anybody, white or black, man or woman, could study there. It was a stronghold of reform in general and of abolition in particular, numbering among its patrons such men as John Pierpont, Gerrit Smith, and Horace Greeley. The college was poor, and the number of students small—about ninety in the summer of 1852, soon after Angeline Stickney’s arrival. Of this number some were fanatics, many were idealists of exceptionally high character, and some were merely befriended by idealists, their chief virtue being a black skin. A motley group, who cared little for classical education, and everything for political and social reforms. Declamation and debate and the preparation of essays and orations were the order of the day—as was only natural among a group of students who felt that the world awaited the proper expression of their doctrines. And in justice be it said, the number of patriotic men and women sent out by this little college might put to shame the well-endowed and highly respectable colleges of the country.

Angeline Stickney entered fully into the spirit of the place. In a letter written in December, 1852, she said:

I feel very much attached to that institution, notwithstanding all
its faults; and I long to see it again, for its foundation rests on
the basis of Eternal Truth—and my heart strings are twined around
its every pillar.

To suit her actions to her words, she became a woman suffragist and adopted the “bloomer” costume. It was worth something in those early days to receive, as she did, letters from Susan B. Anthony and Horace Greeley. Of that hard-hitting Unitarian minister and noble poet, John Pierpont, she wrote, at the time of her graduation:

The Rev. John Pierpont is here. He preached in the chapel Sunday
forenoon. He is a fine looking man. I wish you could see him. He is
over seventy years old, but is as straight as can be, and his face
is as fresh as a young man’s.

Little did she dream that this ardent patriot would one day march into Washington at the head of a New Hampshire regiment, and break bread at her table. Nor could she foresee that her college friends Oscar Fox and A. J. Warner would win laurels on the battlefields of Bull Run and Antietam, vindicating their faith with their blood. Both giants in stature, Captain Fox carried a minie-ball in his breast for forty years, and Colonel Warner, shot through the hip, was saved by a miracle of surgery. Of her classmates—there were only four, all men, who graduated with her—she wrote:

I think I have three as noble classmates as you will find in any
College, they are Living Men.

It is amusing to turn from college friends to college studies—such a contrast between the living men and their academic labors. For example, Angeline Stickney took the degree of A.B. in July, 1855, having entered college, with a modest preparation, in April, 1852, and having been absent about a year, from November, 1852 to September, 1853, when she entered the Junior Class. It is recorded that she studied Virgil the summer of 1852; the fall of 1853, German, Greek, and mathematical astronomy; the next term, Greek and German; and the next term, ending July 12, 1854, Greek, natural philosophy, German and surveying. She began her senior year with calculus, philosophy, natural and mental, and Anthon’s Homer, and during that year studied also Wayland’s Political Economy and Butler’s Analogy. She is also credited with work done in declamation and composition, and “two orations performed.” Her marks, as far as my incomplete records show, were all perfect, save that for one term she was marked 98 per cent in Greek. Upon the credit slip for the last term her “standing” is marked “1”; and her “conduct” whenever marked is always 100.

However, be it observed that Angeline Stickney not only completed the college curriculum at McGrawville, but also taught classes in mathematics. In fact, her future husband was one of her pupils, and has borne witness that she was a “good, careful teacher.”

If McGrawville was not distinguished for high thinking, it could at least lay claim to plain living. Let us inquire into the ways and means of the Stickney sisters. I have already stated that board and lodging cost the two together only one dollar a week. They wrote home to their mother, soon after their arrival:

We are situated in the best place possible for studying domestic
economy. We bought a quart of milk, a pound of crackers, and a sack
of flour this morning.

Tuition for a term of three months was only five dollars; and poor students were encouraged to come and earn their way through college. Ruth returned home after one term, and Angeline worked for her board at a Professor Kingley’s, getting victuals, washing dishes, and sweeping. Even so, after two terms her slender means were exhausted, and she went home to teach for a year. Returning to college in September, 1853, she completed the course in two years, breaking down at last for lack of recreation and nourishment. Ruth returned to McGrawville in 1854, and wrote home: “found Angie well and in good spirits. We are going to board ourselves at Mr. Smith’s.” And Angeline herself wrote: “My health has been quite good ever since I came here. It agrees with me to study.... We have a very pleasant boarding place, just far enough from the college for a pleasant walk.”

Angeline was not selfishly ambitious, but desired her sister’s education as well as her own. Before the bar of her Puritanical conscience she may have justified her own ambition by being ambitious for her sister. In the fall of 1853 she wrote to Ruth:

I hope you will make up your mind to come out here to school next
spring. You can go through college as well as I. As soon as I get
through I will help you. You can go through the scientific course, I
should think, in two years after next spring term if you should come
that term. Then we would be here a year together, and you would get
a pretty good start. There seems to be a way opening for me to get
into good business as soon as I get through college.

And again, in January, 1854:

Ruth, I believe I am more anxious to have you come to school than I
ever was before. I see how much it will increase your influence, and
suffering humanity calls for noble spirits to come to its aid. And I
would like to have you fitted for an efficient laborer. I know you
have intellect, and I would have it disciplined and polished. Come
and join the little band of reformers here, will you not? I want
your society. Sometimes I get very lonely here, and I never should,
if you were only here. Tell me in your next letter that you will
come. I will help you all I can in every thing.

But Ruth lacked her sister’s indomitable will. She loved her, and wished to be with her, whether at home or at college. Indeed, in a letter to Angeline she said she would tease very hard to have her come home, did she not realize how her heart was set upon getting an education. Ruth did return to McGrawville in 1854, but remained only two months, on account of poor health. The student fare did not agree with the vigorous Ruth, apparently; and she now gave up further thought of college, and generously sought to help her sister what she could financially.

Though a dime at McGrawville was equivalent to a dollar elsewhere, Angeline was much cramped for money, and to complete her course was obliged finally to borrow fifty dollars from her cousin Joseph Downs, giving her note payable in one year. When her breakdown came, six weeks before graduation, Ruth, like a good angel, came and took her home. It was a case of sheer exhaustion, aggravated by a tremendous dose of medicine administered by a well-meaning friend. Though she returned to McGrawville and graduated with her class, even producing a sorry sort of poem for the commencement exercises, it was two or three years before she regained her health. Such was a common experience among ambitious American students fifty years ago, before the advent of athletics and gymnasiums.

In closing this chapter, I will quote a character sketch written by one of Angeline’s classmates:

_Slate Pencil Sketches—No. 2. L. A. C—and C. A. Stickney._ Miss C—
is Professor of Rhetoric, and Miss Stickney is a member of the
Senior Class, in N.Y. Central College. A description of their
personal appearance may not be allowable; besides it could not be
attracting, since the element of Beauty would not enter largely into
the sketch. Both are fortunately removed to a safe distance from
Beauty of the Venus type; though the truth may not be quite
apparent, because the adornments of mind by the force of association
have thrown around them the Quakerish veil of _good looks_ (to use
moderate terms), which answers every desirable end of the most
charming attractions, besides effectually saving both from the folly
of Pride. Nevertheless, the writer of this sketch can have no
earthly object in concealing his appreciation of the high brow, and
Nymphean make of the one, and the lustrous eye of the other.

And these personal characteristics are happily suggestive of the
marked mental traits of each. The intellect of the one is subtle,
apprehensive, flexible, docile; with an imagination gay and
discursive, loving the sentimental for the beauty of it. The
intellect of the other is strong and comprehensive, with an
imagination ardent and glowing, inclined perhaps to the sentimental,
but ashamed to own it.

However, let these features pass for the moment until we have
brought under review some other more obvious traits of character.

Miss C—, or if you will allow me to throw aside the _Miss_ and the
Surname, and say Lydia and Angeline, who will complain? Lydia, then,
is possessed of a good share of self-reliance—self-reliance arising
from a rational self-esteem. Whether Angeline possesses the power of
a proper self-appreciation or not, she is certainly wanting in
self-reliance. She may manifest much confidence on occasions, but it
is all acquired confidence; while with Lydia, it is all natural.

From this difference spring other differences. Lydia goes forward in
public exercises as though the public were her normal sphere. On the
other hand Angeline frequently appears embarrassed, though her
unusual powers of _will_ never suffer her to make a failure. Lydia
is ambitious; though she pursues the object of her ambition in a
quiet, complacent way, and appropriates it when secured _all as a
matter of course_. It is possible with Angeline to be ambitious, but
_not at once_—and _never_ so naturally. Her ambition is born of
many-yeared wishes—wishes grounded mainly in the moral nature,
cherished by friendly encouragements, ripening at last into a
settled purpose. Thus springs up her ambition, unconfessed—its
triumph doubted even in the hour of fruition.

When I speak of the ambition of these two, I hope to be understood
as meaning ambition with its true feminine modifications. And this
is the contrast:—The ambition of the one is a necessity of her
nature, the ripening of every hour’s aspiration; while the ambition
of the other is but the fortunate afterthought of an unsophisticated
wish.

Both the subjects of this sketch excel in prose and poetic
composition. Each may rightfully lay claim to the name of poetess.
But Lydia is much the better known in this respect. Perhaps the
constitution of her mind inclines her more strongly to employ the
ornaments of verse, in expressing her thoughts; and perhaps the mind
of Angeline has been too much engrossed in scientific studies to
allow of extensive English reading, or of patient efforts at
elaboration. Hence her productions reveal the _poet_ only; while
those of her friend show both the _poet_ and the _artist_. In truth,
Lydia is by nature far more artificial than Angeline—perhaps I
should have said _artistic_. Every line of her composition reveals
an effort at ornament. The productions of Angeline impress you with
the idea that the author must have had no foreknowledge of what kind
of style would come of her efforts. Not so with Lydia. Her style is
manifestly Calvinistic; in all its features it bears the most
palpable marks of election and predestination. Its every trait has
been subjected to the ordeal of choice, either direct or indirect.
You know it to be a something _developed_ by constant retouches and
successive admixtures. Not that it is an _imitation_ of admired
authors; yet it is plainly the result of an imitative nature—a
something, not borrowed, but _caught_ from a world of beauties, just
as sometimes a well-defined thought is the sequence of a thousand
flitting conceptions. Her style is the offspring, the issue of the
love she has cherished for the beautiful in other minds yet bearing
the image of her own.

Not so with Angeline, for there is no imitativeness in her nature.
Her style can arise from no such commerce of mind, but the Spirit of
the Beautiful overshadowing her, it springs up in its singleness,
and its genealogy cannot be traced.

But this contrast of style is not the only contrast resulting from
this difference in imitation and in love of ornament. It runs
through all the phases of their character. Especially is it seen in
manner, dress and speech; but in speech more particularly. When
Lydia is in a passage of unimpassioned eloquence, her speech reminds
you that the tongue is Woman’s plaything; while Angeline plies the
same organ with as utilitarian an air as a housewife’s churn-dasher.
But pardon this exaggeration: something may be pardoned to the
spirit of liberty; and the writer is aware that he is using great
liberties.

To return: Lydia has a fine sense of the ludicrous. Her name is
charmingly appropriate, signifying in the original playful or
sportive. Her laughter wells up from within, and gurgles out from
the corners of her mouth. Angeline is but moderately mirthful, and
her laughter seems to come from somewhere else, and shines on the
outside of her face like pale moonlight. In Lydia’s mirthfulness
there is a strong tincture of the sarcastic and the droll. Angeline
at the most is only humorous. When a funny thing happens, Lydia
laughs _at_ it—Angeline laughs _about_ it. Lydia might be giggling
all day alone, just at her own thoughts. Angeline I do not believe
ever laughs except some one is by to talk the fun. And in sleep,
while Lydia was dreaming of jokes and quips, Angeline might be
fighting the old Nightmare.

After all, do not understand me as saying that the Professor C—– is
always giggling like a school-girl; or that the Senior Stickney is
apt to be melancholy and down in the mouth. I have tried to describe
their feelings relatively.

Lydia has a strong, active imagination, marked by a vivid
playfulness of fancy. Her thoughts flow on, earnest, yet sparkling
and flashing like a raven-black eye. Angeline has an imagination
that glows rather than sparkles. It never scintillates, but
gradually its brightness comes on with increasing radiance. If the
thoughts of Lydia flit like fire flies, the thoughts of Angeline
unfold like the blowing rose. If the fancy of one glides like a
sylph or tiptoes like a school-girl, the imagination of the other
bears on with more stateliness, though with less grace. Lydia’s
imagination takes its flight up among the stars, it turns, dives,
wheels, peers, scrutinizes, wonders and grows serious and then
fearful. But the imagination of the other takes its stand like a
maiden by the side of a clear pool, and gazes down into the depths
of Beauty.

Their different gifts befit their different natures. While one
revels in delight, the other is lost in rapture; while one is
trembling with awe, the other is quietly gazing into the mysterious.
While one is worshipping the beautiful, the other lays hold on the
sublime. Beauty is the ideal of the one; sublimity is the normal
sphere of the other. Both seek unto the spiritual, but through
different paths. When the qualities of each are displayed, the one
is a chaste star shining aloft in the bright skies; the other is a
sunset glow, rich as gold, but garish all around with gray clouds.

ROMEO.

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