Chapter I: H. R. PRINCE GUY DE LUSIGNAN between pages (3)

While the soldier-messenger was eating his meal she had been thinking. “The soldier has generally no part nor voice in creating the war in which he fights. He simply obeys, as he must, his superiors and the laws of his country.” The soldier is under orders, but he is under _my_ orders now. It’s bitter cold and, while I can ride comfortably on the inside of the ambulance, he must ride outside on the seat in the snow. She considered his comfort, not her own; his life, not hers. She _ordered_ him to put his horses in the barn and care for them. She made him her guest, standing sponsor for him at military headquarters—awaiting a pleasant day for the trip. In soliloquizing on her conduct she said: “God forbid that I should ask the useless exposure of _one_ man, the desolation of _one_ home.”

XXVII

Advice is seldom welcome. LORD CHESTERFIELD.

Men give away nothing so liberally as their advice.

ROCHEFOUCAULD.

I do not like giving advice; it is incurring an unnecessary
responsibility. BEACONSFIELD.

Those who give bad advice to the prudent both lose their pains and are
laughed to scorn. PHAEDRUS.

I pray thee cease thy counsel, which falls into my ears as profitless
as water in a sieve. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.

Clara Barton—in her 77th year—followed to the fever ridden tropics, to
lead in the relief work on Spanish battle grounds.

Grand Rapids (Mich.) _Herald_.

In Cuba one saw only
Nodding plumes over their bier to wave,
And God’s own hand in that lonely land
To lay them in their grave. CLARA BARTON.

Mr. Cottrell, private secretary of Clara Barton, says: “Miss Barton
was the means of saving thousands of lives in Cuba. She was a small,
unostentatious woman, very quiet in her demeanor and spoke in a soft,
sweet tone. Her habits were simple, but she had a great capacity for
organization work.”

New Orleans (La.) _Times-Democrat_.

My post is the open field between the bullet and the hospital.

CLARA BARTON.

DOES NOT NEED ANY ADVICE

At Santiago Miss Barton approached Admiral Sampson and said, “There is some doubt about our being able to unload.”

“Miss Barton,” replied Sampson, “Tell the world that the Red Cross Society does not need any advice. We only need an opportunity. If any trouble happens you, let me know.”

On one of the boats in the harbor of Santiago, the following conversation took place between a Major-Surgeon and Clara Barton:

Major: “You have been at the front?”

Clara Barton: “Yes, Major.”

Major: “I should think you would find it very unpleasant there.”

Clara Barton: “Such things are not supposed to be pleasant.”

Major: “What do you go for? There is no need of your going there; it is no place for women. I consider women very much out of place in a field hospital.”

Clara Barton: “Then I must have been out of place a good deal in my lifetime, Major, for I have been there a great deal.”

Major: “That does not change my opinion; if I had my way I would send you home.”

Miss Barton: “Fortunately for me, if for no one else, Major, you have not your way.” Major: “I know it, but again that does not change my opinion. I would send you home....”

Miss Barton: “Good morning, Major.”

“I am with the wounded,” flashed along the wire
From the Isle of Cuba swept with sword and fire.
Angel sweet of mercy, may your Cross of Red
Cheer the wounded living; bless the wounded dead.

XXVIII

Clara Barton—humanity is richer for her having lived.

Grand Rapids (Mich.) _Press_.

Life is a shuttle. MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR.

Life is a bubble. WM. BROWNE.

Life is a miracle. KING LEAR.

Life is a walking shadow. MEREDITH.

Life is like a stroll on the beach. THOREAU.

Life is scarcely the twinkle of a star. BAYARD TAYLOR.

Life lives only in success. SWIFT.

That life is long that answers life’s great end.

YOUNG’S NIGHT THOUGHTS.

For the multitude of failures I have encountered I am sorry.

CLARA BARTON.

Life is so short at best. CLARA BARTON.

It’s now three minutes past twelve and I am thirty-three. Alas, my
friend, the years pass swiftly by, but I do not regret them so much
for what I have done, as what I _might_ have done. BYRON.

HAD BUT A FEW MOMENTS TO LIVE

Clara Barton supplied the place of mother and sister to the sick soldiers, and this she did for many months, while in the deadly miasma of the South Carolina marshes. Much of this time she was with the soldiers and facing the guns of Fort Wagner. There with the shot and shell whistling about her, the heroic woman could be seen at all hours of the day and night stooping over the wounded soldiers, and tenderly administering to their wants. An officer who had been with the Army of the Potomac said that he had seen this woman upon the field of battle, sitting with the head of a dying soldier in her lap, apparently unconcerned and then only for the comfort of the poor fellow who had but a few moments to live.

XXIX

Clara Barton—representing the mercy and magnanimity of the nation.
Columbus (Ohio) _Despatch_.

Clara Barton—her works of mercy in war and peace made her an
international figure. _New York Tribune._

Everybody’s business was nobody’s business, and the stricken victims
perished. CLARA BARTON.

The door that never creaked a hinge for the feeble child of want may
swing wide open at the thundering knock of the Marshal’s Staff. CLARA
BARTON.

The incentive to help and heal another in distress is spontaneous,
generally the result of sympathetic impulse and kindness—a thing of
the feelings and consequently of sudden growth.

CLARA BARTON.

“The other ladies could not endure the climate at Morris Island,” and,
as I knew somebody must take care of the soldiers, I went.

CLARA BARTON.

The idea of humanity in distress is not entirely modern;
Alexander was accompanied in his march by the most famous physicians
of the age. CLARA BARTON.

Homer and Plato were so struck with Egyptian Science and skill that
they declared the Egyptians were all doctors.

CLARA BARTON.

It is probable that the first practitioners in common life were women.
CLARA BARTON.

A wise physician, skilled, our wounds to heal
Is more than armies to the public weal.

A sister and family followed me to Washington that I should not be
quite alone in that slave city, for up to 1860 they bought and sold
slaves at the Capital. CLARA BARTON.

When I think, I fear how supreme an International Court must have been
to be able to induce the Southerners to liberate the slaves, or to
convince them that “mudsills” and “greasy mechanics” and “horned
yankees” are a people entitled to sufficient respect to be treated on
fair international grounds. CLARA BARTON.

ENLISTED MEN FIRST—THE COLONEL’S LIFE SAVED

In ancient Greece, in the Roman Empire, in Europe through the middle ages, in the more modern chivalry of “Dixie,” among soldiers no slave, no servant—none but a _gentleman_ carried a gun to kill. Killing in war time was the occupation of “gentlemen” only. For the first time in the history of the Centuries—in 1863—the ex-slave alongside the “gentlemen” on the battlefield, fought for human rights. It was at the battle of Fort Wagner on Morris Island; Colonel Shaw had led his “colored regiment” to that field of slaughter.

The first woman nurse on any battlefield, a veteran nurse at the front, was there,—the only woman present among the thousands of boys in blue. The chivalric southern soldiers hated the “mudsills,” the “greasy mechanics” and the “horned yankees,” but with a still more deadly hatred the “nigger in blue”—the ex-slave now marshalled in battle array against his former master. The onslaught there amidst the whizzing of bullets and bursting of shells is pictured as the “orgy of hell.”

The Colonel while leading that colored regiment was among the wounded. “Miss Barton, Colonel Shaw is lying on a dissecting table. His leg has been taken off. His life is ebbing away; won’t you go to him?”

Bearing the bandage, water and sponge,
Straight and swift to the wounded I go—

Miss Barton replied: “Officers generally have friends enough to see that their wants are attended to, while the poor enlisted men are neglected. I will go to see the Colonel as soon as I have attended to my charges here.” When she was through with the wounded enlisted men, Clara Barton gave her attention to the Colonel, and through her services his life was saved.

XXX

If any number of Americans were asked off-hand to name the woman who
stands highest in the esteem of the American people, the reply would
be unanimously, “Clara Barton.”

_Republic Magazine._

The patience, the nobility of soul, the resignation and bravery of our
gallant troops! CLARA BARTON.

Love chivalry. ARMAND.

Chivalry is the essence of virtue. LORD JOHN RUSSELL.

Chivalry was the parent of honor. A. DELEVAN.

The true spirit of chivalry is a generous impatience of wrong.

CHATFIELD.

Chivalry has not entirely died out in this prosaic age.

CECILIA FINDLAY.

“People say that I must have been born brave,” said Clara Barton.
“Why, I seem to remember nothing but terrors in my early days, I was a
shrinking little bundle of fears, fears of thunder, fears of strange
faces, fears of my strange self.”

MARY R. PARKMAN—In _Heroines of Service_.

Fear loves the idea of danger. S. CROXALL.

The moment my fear begins, I cease to fear. SCHILLER.

The weak most fear, the timid tremble, but the brave and stout of
heart will work and hope and trust. CLARA BARTON.

YOU’RE RIGHT, MADAM—GOOD DAY

Immediately following the Battle of Fredericksburg, every house in the city became a hospital. Among the thousands of wounded Clara Barton, in her usual unobtrusive manner, passed in and out of the houses, first on one side of the street then on the other, on her mission of mercy. Provost Marshal General Patrick seeing her alone among the soldiers mistook her for a resident driven from her home.

The general did not seem to know that any good woman is safe among men, brave and true, and nowhere else more so than among soldiers. He did not fully appreciate that when a woman is true to herself

So dear to heav’n is saintly chastity,
That when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her;

and he did not know Clara Barton.

So, with admirable southern chivalry, he dashed to her side, bowing with hat in hand, and said: “Madam, you are alone and in great danger here!”

“No, I think not, Marshal.”

“Yes, you are, Madam. May I offer you my protection?”

“No, Marshal, I think it is not necessary.” Then turning to the ranks of the soldiers she further commented: “No, Marshal, I am the best protected woman in the United States.”

The soldiers appreciating the compliment sent up cheer after cheer, accompanied with “That’s so! that’s so!”

The Marshal, taking in the situation and waving his hand towards Miss Barton with a broad smile, said: “I think you are right, Madam, Good day!”

XXXI

Clara Barton dared the bullets on the battlefield with the abandon of
a dashing cavalry leader. Pawtucket (R. I.) _Times_.

In Clara Barton, the world has lost a guardian angel.

PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN.

Death grinned a horrible ghastly smile. JOHN MILTON.

Says Clara Barton, in one of the battles of the Civil War, “A little
sibley tent had been hastily pitched for me in a slight hollow upon a
hillside. How many times I fell from sheer exhaustion in the darkness
and mud of that slippery hillside I have no knowledge; but at last I
grasped the welcome canvas, and a well established brook which washed
in on the upper side, at the opening which served as the door, met me
on my entrance to the tent.”

PERCY H. EPLER.

Clara Barton slept on the ground, wrapped in a blanket like a soldier,
but her zeal was in no way diminished by hardship.

St. Paul (Minn.) _Pioneer Press_.

Clara Barton gave a lifetime of glorious service to humanity—a
ministering angel like a benediction of her God amid the desolate, the
stricken, the hungry and despairing. _Los Angeles Examiner._

Sickness, confusion and death—these are inseparable from every
conflict. CLARA BARTON.

I can never see a poor mutilated wreck, blown to pieces with powder
and lead, without wondering if visions of such an end ever floated
before his mother’s mind when she washed and dressed her fair-skinned
boy. CLARA BARTON.

When giant misery stalks to the very threshold, and raps with bloody
hands on one’s door, it is almost a libel upon the good Christian term
to call it charity that answers. CLARA BARTON.

Women should certainly have some voice in the matter of war, either
affirmative or negative, and the fact that she has not this should not
be made the ground to deprive her of other privileges.

CLARA BARTON.

“They say”:

Imagine their skirts ’mong artillery wheels,
And watch for their flutter as they flee ’cross the fields,
When the charge is rammed home and the fire belches hot;—
They never will wait for the answering shot.
They would faint at the first drop of blood in sight—
CLARA BARTON.

BLEEDING TO DEATH—HIS HEADLESS BODY—WOMEN IN THE WAR

One day Miss Barton was asked to tell what was the most terrible experience she had ever gone through on a field of disaster or war, and she replied: “It was at the battle of Antietam. The poor boys were falling so fast that I rushed up into the line of fire to save them from bleeding to death by temporarily binding up their wounds. Bullets went through my clothing, but I did not think of danger. I loaded myself with canteens and went to a nearby spring and filled them with water, until I staggered under the load. The wounded were crying for water and I went to one poor boy who was wild with thirst and, stooping, I lifted his head on my arm and knee and was giving him water from the canteen when a cannon ball took his head off, covering me with blood and brains. I dropped the headless body and went to the next wounded soldier, and so all day I worked through this awful battle and refused to retire, though officers and men tried to drive me back.”

In the Civil War there was widespread opposition to the presence of women on the battlefield—both on the part of civilians and the military officers. Lincoln was not the exception. He protested that a woman on the battlefield would be a “fifth wheel to a wagon.” After the close of the war Clara Barton penned the following, a part of the poem entitled “The Women who went to the Field”:

Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,
At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?
And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,
And her calm stately presence gave strength to the men.

XXXII

In spite of her retiring nature and shrinking from publicity, Clara
Barton remained probably the best known woman in America, surely one
of the best-beloved.

New Orleans (La.) _Item_.

Miss Barton took the lecture platform, under an agreement to lecture
300 nights at $100 a night.

Louisville (Ky.) _Courier-Journal_.

Fear is the mother of foresight. HENRY TAYLOR.

Fear is the mother of safety. EDMUND BURKE.

Fear makes us feel for humanity. EARL OF BEACONSFIELD.

In the earlier years of my life, I remember nothing but fear.

CLARA BARTON.

It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person: “Always
do what you are afraid to do.”

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Timid as a sheep. OUIDA.

Timid as a doe. ROBERT NOEL.

Timid as a fawn. THACKERAY.

I am the most timid person on earth. CLARA BARTON.

Some critic has said that I was visibly agitated when I arose to
address my audience;—the critic was right, and why should I not be?
CLARA BARTON.

All speech-making terrifies me. First I have no taste for it, and
lastly I hate it. CLARA BARTON.

Nothing could gratify me more than to know that I had been one of
these self-reliant American girls like our sweet poetess Lucy Larcrom.
CLARA BARTON.

If I could have gotten over my timid sensitiveness it would have given
far less annoyance to my friends, and trouble to myself, all through
life. CLARA BARTON.

TIMID CHILD—TIMID WOMAN

Fear is relative. The fear of death by flames is greater than by water. The fear not to do is ofttimes greater than the fear to do. The fear of failure is supplanted by courage. To the sensitive nature the fear that others may suffer impels to the greatest courage. Despite innate fear, courage is uppermost in the minds of those who would achieve results. The most renowned in the fine arts, in oratory, in patriotism, in the humanities, are those by nature timid.

John B. Gough and Clara Barton at one time lived in the same town; were personal friends; in the lecture season, successively talked from the same platform. These two Americans were each as timid, probably, as ever appeared before a public audience. But each achieved an enviable reputation as a platform lecturer.

The morning following one of his inimitable temperance lectures, I remarked: “Mr. Gough, I wish I had your assurance before an audience.” “Young man,” he replied, “you don’t know me. I have given thousands of lectures, but I never rise to address an audience that my knees don’t knock together, from stage fright. Last night, as I arose to address that splendid body of college boys, I was scared stiff; for some moments I was so frightened I couldn’t utter a word.”

In his autobiography he wrote: “For thirty-seven years I have been a public speaker, but have never known the time when I did not dread an audience. Often that fear amounts to positive suffering. In my suffering, trembling seizes every nerve.”

Clara Barton was a timid child; so much so as to annoy her parents, and other friends. When about eight years of age she was sent away to school in the hope that, among strangers, she would become at ease in the presence of others. At school she grew tired; became thin and pale; said she was hungry, but refused to eat. It was suspected that it was all on account of her timidity, and that she might die of starvation. Because she dared not eat, the teacher returned her to her home. In referring to this experience, and her later experiences in the presence of strangers, a few years before she died, she said: “To this day I would rather stand behind the lines of artillery at Antietam, or cross the pontoon bridge under fire at Fredericksburg, than to preside at a public meeting.”

XXXIII

The negro has no linguistic laws—his pathetically musical speech is
fast dying away—only will linger the salient printed form to convey to
the future some idea of the olden dialect.

LA SALLE CORBELL PICKETT—“_In de Miz Series_.”

I know of the intelligence of the negro, for I have heard of his
unquestioned loyalty between every war of our land from Bunker Hill to
the Argonne. SECRETARY OF THE NAVY DANIELS.

The only flag the negro ever carried was when his spirit was stirred
crimson by the sacrificial blood he gave for America. Cite me a negro
traitor! JUSTICE STAFFORD.

In the World War, in France up in the zone where death was spread
about I found the black man and the white man fallen side by side.
SECRETARY OF WAR BAKER.

The courage that faces death on the battlefield, or calmly awaits it
in the hospital, is not the courage of race or color.

CLARA BARTON.

Two of the bravest men I ever saw lay wounded, almost side by side,
one white and the other black. CLARA BARTON.

The patient suffering of the black soldier is fully equal to that of
the Anglo-Saxon. CLARA BARTON.

EZ EF WE WUZ WHITE FOLKS

At Galveston one day, when Miss Barton was busy dictating letters her companion, Mrs. Fannie B. Ward, came in and told her that there were two negro soldiers of the Civil War waiting to see her. Miss Barton said, “Let them come in.” The two old negroes came in with their hats in their hands and bowing at every step.

One of them asked, “Miss Barton, do you know us?” She replied, “No, I don’t remember you.”

“We knows you, Miss Barton,” was the reply, “We wuz in de battle er Fo’t Wagner an’ got wounded dyar, an’ you foun’ us an’ tied up our wounds an’ tuk cyar er us same ez ef we wuz white folks.”

Proud of their wounds, one of the negroes rolled up his sleeve and showed a great scar on his arm, saying, “I wuz in de cha’ge, Miss Barton, an’ a officer slashed me wid a swo’d.” The other pulled up his trousers and displayed a very deep scar on the calf of his leg and said, “En’ I got wounded in de leg wid a bullet.”

Miss Barton’s smile of appreciation and her cordial handshake sent them away with happy memories.

© _Harris & Ewing_

LEONARD WOOD

There is a call for women who will carry forward the work begun by
Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton.—LEONARD WOOD, Major-General
Spanish-American War; Major-General World War; Governor-General
Philippine Islands.

General Wood, alert, wise and untiring, with an eye single to the good
of all, toiled day and night.

CLARA BARTON.
]

XXXIV

Clara Barton’s name will take its place among the world’s heroines.
Denver (Colorado) _Times_.

Life is like a dream. DR. S. JOHNSON.

Our Life is a dream. CHARLES WESLEY.

I have a presentiment that I shall not outlast the rebellion.

A. LINCOLN.

Dreams are the bright evidence of poem and legend, who sport on the
earth in the night season. CHARLES DICKENS.

Dreams in their development have breath and tears, and torture and a
touch of joy. LORD BYRON.

I have dreamed of bloody turbulence; and this whole night
Hath nothing been but forms of slaughter. SHAKESPEARE.

It seems to me I have been dreaming a horrid dream for four years; now
the nightmare is gone. A. LINCOLN.

O Memory! that midway world,
’Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
In dreamy shadows rise.
A. LINCOLN.

To dream of battle—danger of persecution.

MADAME CLAIRE ROUGEMONT, Author.

For a woman to dream that she is in battle is a very lucky omen.

_The Queen of the Romanies._

IN HER DREAMS—AGAIN IN BATTLE

“What’s that big barn of a house?”

“It’s the Red Cross house.”

“Who lives there?” “Clara Barton, don’t you know Clara Barton?” “And what does she want to live in a house like that for?”

“It is her headquarters—her home. There is where she does her work; there is where she keeps her supplies. Whenever there is a cry of distress anywhere in the United States she is off at a moment’s notice.”

No paint on the outside of the house, none on the inside—a regular barn—why wouldn’t the stranger ask questions?

The inside of the house is also strangely mysterious, with its great central part open to the ceiling; the balconies protected by railings, reminding one of a steamship, the atmosphere giving the stranger a sort of weird, uncanny feeling.

The visitor when within is still curious, and would ask other questions. “What are all these things on the wall?”

“They are diplomas, resolutions of cities, states and nations—medals won for services rendered in distress—all kinds of souvenirs complimentary to Clara Barton.”

“Interesting, very interesting!”

“Yes, no other place like it in all the world.”

“But what are these small doors for? They look like doors to sleeping berths.”

“No, they are doors to closets. There are thirty-eight rooms in this house and seventy-six closets.”

“What are the closets for?”

“Well, these closets in the walls, on either side of the big hall, are where she keeps bandages, linen, clothes, food in large quantities, to be shipped wherever wanted. It is surely no vine-clad cottage; it is a veritable store-house of food for the needy, a ware-house of clothes for the suffering,—anywhere in the world. Clara Barton called it her ‘House of Rough Hemlock Boards’—the boards were from the wreckage of the Johnstown flood.”

Hourly in the presence of such environments as to suggest war and flood and famine, and at times delirious, it is not strange that two nights before her death, on April 10, 1912, in her dreams there flitted before her the tragic past; that she dreamt that she was again in battle; that she saw “her boys” with legs and arms gone; that she gave crackers and gruel to the sick and bound up the wounds of the soldiers; that again she felt the twitching at her dress and heard “You saved my life;” that again she caught the last words of the dying to be sent to the mothers and sisters and sweethearts, and heard from the lips of her dying soldier-brother, “Oh! God, save my country!”

XXXV

Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, was the greatest feminine mind of the
ancient deities concerned in human welfare. THE AUTHOR.

Bring the feminine mind to bear upon all that concerns the welfare of
mankind. JULIA WARD HOWE.

Judge—You voted as a woman, did you not?

Miss Anthony—No, sir, I voted as a citizen of the United States.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
(In 1872, she then being under arrest for voting
for President of the United States.)

Let us “push things” so that every state in the union shall speedily
surrender to the advocates of women’s equality and elevation.

MARY A. LIVERMORE—Jan. 8, 1870.

American women and students of American history have long deplored the
meagre credit which has been given to women for the part they have
taken in the progress and achievement of America, as a nation. MRS.
JOHN A. LOGAN.

In “Part Taken by Women in American History.”

I know nothing remarkable I have done. The hum-drum of my every day
life seems to me quite without incident. CLARA BARTON.

Speaking of myself, and my own doings, is a thing very distasteful to
me. CLARA BARTON.

THE RED CROSS HOME OF CLARA BARTON, GLEN ECHO, MARYLAND

“Clara Barton to the end kept open house at her Glen Echo home, for
the soldier boys.”

“The Red Cross House at Glen Echo was a flag museum of historical
achievements.”

Historical ground carries its own sentiment: Mount Vernon, American
Liberty; Monticello, American Democracy; Glen Echo, World Humanity.
]

FOUR FAMOUS WOMEN

A famous artist called at Miss Barton’s home and explained to her that he had been sent out to secure the portraits of the four most famous women in America. She asked him, “Whom have you been to see?” And he replied, “I have come to you first.” “And whom will you go to next?” Miss Barton inquired. “To Julia Ward Howe, of Boston,” he replied. “And whom for the third?” Miss Barton asked. “I do not know,” he answered. “You tell me, Miss Barton.” “Well,” replied Miss Barton, “why not go to Mrs. General John A. Logan?” “I will, Miss Barton,” he said. “And whom will I go to next?” asked the artist. Miss Barton replied, “I cannot tell you, but if Susan B. Anthony were living, or Mary Livermore, I could tell you.”

Susan B. Anthony wrote to Clara Barton: “I know, in a general way, my dear Clara, that you have done some wonderful things in the world, but I would like to have a list of just what you have done, to present to my audiences. So please prepare a brief story of your achievements for my use.” In due time came the reply, enclosing a very brief chronological list of Miss Barton’s achievements. Miss Anthony wrote back at once and said: “Dear Clara: I cannot present this skeleton to the public. Please put some clothes on it.”

XXXVI

Clara Barton—a wonderful majesty in the simplicity of her character.
Sacramento (Cal.) _Record-Union_.

Like the stories from fairy lore are the accounts, modestly written
and simply given, of the tremendous, almost super-human, work done by
this little woman. Oakland (Cal.) _Tribune_.

Clara Barton loved everything that lived. Roanoke (Va.) _News_.

Bugs and other insects, as well as squirrels and other animals, gave
her hourly enjoyment. Clara used to say, “these are my friends, they
have as good a right to live as I have.”

“SISTER HARRIETTE” L. REED.

Her love for the farmyard and its animals never left her.

PERCY H. EPLER.

It was her heroic soul and deep woman sympathy that made Clara Barton
strong and brave. WILLIAM E. BARTON.

Nothing endures but personal qualities. WALT WHITMAN.

Sir John Franklin,—who never turned his back upon a danger, yet of
that tenderness that he would not brush away a mosquito.

WILLIAM MATTHEWS.

I too have a kitty and he is pretty much master of the house. He
doesn’t speak German, although I have no doubt he understands it.
CLARA BARTON.

A harmless necessary cat. MERCHANT OF VENICE.

A cat may look on a king. HAYWOOD’S PROVERBS.

In the night all cats are grey. CERVANTES.

When the cat’s away the mice will play. OLD PROVERBS.

As vigilant as a cat to steal cream. SHAKESPEARE.

It has been the providence of nature to give this creature nine lives,
instead of one. PILPAY.

Hang sorrow! Care will kill a cat,
And therefore let’s be merry. GEORGE WITHER.

Confound the cats! All cats—alway—
Cats of all colors, black, white, gray;
By night a nuisance and by day—
Confound the cats! DOBBIN.

Even poverty has its compensation. CLARA BARTON.

There is neither teacher nor preacher like necessity.

CLARA BARTON.

No work can retain its vitality without constant action.

CLARA BARTON.

Though to bed at daylight, or at best midnight, Clara Barton never
slept late in the morning. J. B. HUBBELL.

Let us each make haste to do the work set before us, in the Providence
of God, unostentatiously, thoroughly and well.

CLARA BARTON.

She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the
bread of idleness. PROVERBS.

In October, 1911 (at the age of 90), while she was propped up in bed
and seriously ill, I asked “why, Miss Barton, you haven’t a gray hair
in your head, have you?” Quick was the response, “I don’t know, I
haven’t had time to look.” THE AUTHOR.

Oftener than I could wish my heart sinks heavily, oppressed with fear
that I am falling short of the fulfillment of life’s duties.

CLARA BARTON.

Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss
Of Providence that hast survived the Fall. COWPER _Task_.

SIMPLICITY OF CHILDHOOD—PET WASPS PET CATS—LOVED LIFE-DOMESTIC

The simplicity of childhood continued with Clara Barton through to her latest years. Because requested by children in letters to do so, at eighty-six years she commenced to write “The Story of My Childhood.” She did not reach second childhood; she was in her first childhood at ninety. On a certain occasion, having declined to address an audience, she reconsidered and said: “Oh, yes, I will talk to the children.”

Pets, as in childhood, continued; she had them wherever she happened to be,—pets of the chickens, pets of the birds, pets of the squirrels, pets of the domestic animals. She saw Divinity in nature; loved as does the believer in pantheism, as does the believer in the “transmigration of souls.” To the science of entomology she was not a stranger. Among her swarms of bees she continued the student of those who work for man and do not “bruise their Master’s flower;” loved even that household “pest,” the wasp.

A wasp met a bee that was just buzzing by
And she said, “Little Cousin, Can you tell me why
You are loved so much better by people than I?”

But in the existence of a wasp Miss Barton did not think there was wholly of “mischief to do.” Genius philosophizes. To serve its uses, the wasp is perfect in its organs, and in its symmetry. The male wasp does not sting at all; and, while the “female of the species is deadlier than the male,” the female does not sting except in defence, in obeying the first law of nature,—the law which is the saving principle in the universe.

The wasp renders service, service to the fruit-grower by destroying the caterpillar, especially of the green fly and black fly, and of other harmful insects. The wasp is not too aristocratic to act as scavenger, stripping the bones of small dead animals of skin and flesh—for its grubs—thus precluding carrion from becoming offensive and, through pollution of the atmosphere, unhealthful. The social wasp is strategic, is accredited with amazing cleverness, with courage never-failing, with intelligence higher than instinct,—having a system of living that should shame its human enemy. He who, in his ignorance, comes to the wasp to scoff goes away to admire. If only the wasp would toil for man, appeasing man’s appetite for sweets, that winged “pest” would be _loved_ as is the honey bee.

At the Glen Echo Red Cross house, on the window-ledges, in the slats for window-catches, where the walls and ceilings join, in every nook and corner, the welcomed wasps had their little mud cells. While at the dining table, or at her writing desk, Miss Barton would cut an apple and sometimes around it would gather a swarm of these “pests.” Of the wasps, that nobody likes, she was wont to say “these are my little friends; they keep me company;”—as they hovered over and around her she seemed to get inspiration from them in her literary work.

In her early years Clara Barton’s special pets were the dog and the horse; in later years, the cat. She accredited her black and white cat at Dansville with human personality. Her Maltese cat at Glen Echo she accredited with _reasoning_ powers, with a _logical_ mind. Of Maltese Tommie she tells this story. Tommie saw another cat in the mirror. He stared at it; moved his head in rapid succession to one side of the mirror, then to the other side. The other cat did likewise. He dashed like mad to the back of the mirror, but found no cat. Returning to the front of the mirror, he put his left paw on the glass; the right paw of the other cat responded. He put his right paw on the glass; the left paw of the other cat met his. He again put his left paw on the glass, this time being close to the edge of the mirror and, continuing to hold it there he reached around to the back of the mirror with his right paw to grab the insolent intruder. Not seeing the other cat, as he quickly glanced around the edge of the mirror, and not having found it with his right paw, “he wiser grew” and walked away philosophizing;—in this vain world—

Things are not what they seem—but then,
A pleasant illusion is better than a harsh reality.

The picture of Maltese Tommie, painted by Antoinette Margot, is still one of the historic art-treasures on the walls of the Clara Barton Glen Echo home.

Those who think of Clara Barton only as the “war woman” within the battle smoke, or on the rostrum addressing literary audiences, or on state occasions as the cynosure of all eyes, or as the guest of honor among the crowned heads of Europe—as masculine and not feminine—have not seen the daily life-picture of Clara Barton. Clara Barton was most womanly when most childlike, queenliest when lowliest and, like the Roman Matron, most aristocratic when most domestic.

As Divinity lives in all life, as God the first garden made and work was the best religion Clara Barton had, her applied religion was in the yard as she cared for the domestic animals; in the garden as she cared for the shrubs, the flowers, the vegetables, her special pride being in raising fine strawberries. Frequently was Miss Barton called from the yard or garden, to meet guests in her “House of Rough Hemlock Boards,”—there where was welcome ever royal and farewell went out loyal; there where—

Honest offered courtesy
Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds
With smoky rafters than in tapestry halls
And courts of princes, where it first was named
And yet is most pretended.

XXXVII

Of the women writers that lived at the time of the Civil War the mind
of Harriet Beecher Stowe was the most imaginative; “the vehicle of
thought” used by Clara Barton, the best equipped, the most powerful.
In war-literature Mrs. Stowe will live through the genius of her great
novel; Clara Barton, through her descriptive powers, forceful diction,
and patriotic sayings. THE AUTHOR.

Learn to be good readers. CARLYLE.

God be thanked for books. CHANNING.

Mankind are creatures of books, as well of other circumstances.

LEIGH HUNT.

The true university of these days is a collection of books.

HERO AND HERO WORSHIPPERS.

Reading to the mind is what exercise is to the body. ADDISON.

Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but
half-a-dozen in a thousand. THOREAU.

Books, like friends, should be few and well chosen. FULLER.

Read much, but not many books. SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON.

When a new book appears, read an old one.

ENGLISH APHORISM.

Old wood to burn, old wine to drink.
Old friends to trust, old books to read.
ALONZO of Arragon.

Miss Barton would not rewrite a public address; on looking it over,
not a sentence, not a word, could be improved by changing.

J. B. HUBBELL, Assistant to Clara Barton.

She who desires information can sit down, read, and obtain it.

CLARA BARTON.

Persons who use their brains, tongues and pens for the improvement of
their kind, are those of whom biographies may profitably be written.
CLARA BARTON.

Miss Barton is in the front rank of American lecturers—excelled by
none. AURORA BEACON.

The Secretary to President McKinley used to say that in his
correspondence at the White House the letters of Clara Barton excelled
all others in literary merit. THE AUTHOR.

Clara Barton’s lecture is beautifully written. JOHN B. GOUGH.

CLARA BARTON IN THE LITERARY FIELD

The treasure-house of the world is of books. Books are one’s chosen friends, and friends are of souls with like aspirations. From the contents of books character is made. The legacy in books is what youth bequeaths to maturity. In youth Clara Barton entered the “true university,” that of books. She read not only books from the shelf but found “books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” Her favorite authors were Shakespeare, Longfellow, Milton, Keats, Schiller, Bunyan, Tennyson, Scott and Browning.

Had she followed the promptings of her head, and not her heart, Clara Barton might have been a Mrs. Sigourney. One of her admirers says that, had she been an author, “her gracefulness of expression, her buoyancy of thought, and brilliancy of imagery” would have placed her in a class with Maria Edgeworth, Jane Austen, and Charlotte Brontë. But Clara Barton is now in a class—in a class by herself—and throughout the future the student of humanity will study Clara Barton.

Clara Barton’s descriptions of battle, and other, scenes are surpassing in vividness—unequalled. In her diaries, which she kept for more than half-a-century, are nuggets of human wisdom. Her wise sayings, as those of Benjamin Franklin, would fill a volume. Such Clara Barton Red Cross maxims, and other wise sayings as appear in these pages, are but the flotsam and jetsam of a cargo of writings, the cargo partly wrecked and no part of it available by the author.

Clara Barton was a nurse, but only as Lincoln was a rail-splitter. As an executive, Clara Barton is accredited as the greatest _man_ in America, by one of America’s greatest statesmen; as the greatest woman in the world, by one of America’s greatest generals; as having done more for humanity than any other woman since the time of Mary of Galilee, by a great State Executive. By a great writer, it is said that through reading everything is within one’s reach. Clara Barton’s mental reach into national and world problems at least widens and heightens the possibilities of womankind.

Her Red Cross lectures are not “Caudle Lectures to Ladies”; they, including official reports, are high-class state papers which would do credit to the White House—literary, argumentative, statesmanlike. For twenty-three years in America Clara Barton was the Red Cross encyclopedia, the Red Cross dictionary. She was also the Red Cross legislature, the Red Cross Supreme Court, the Commander-in-Chief of our Red Cross battalions, at home and abroad. Although one of the “remonstrants,” in the press, referred to the Red Cross as “Clara Barton’s Bread and Butter Brigade” the Achilles in that brigade had won for humanity the greatest battle on American soil.

Her address, “History of the Red Cross; Its Origin and Progress,” is all comprehensive, showing research, scholarship, logic. Her “Address to the President, Congress and People of the United States” on “The Red Cross—A History of This Remarkable Movement in the Interest of Humanity” is as overwhelmingly convincing, as to the necessity of adhesion by this Government to the Treaty of Geneva, as was Webster’s historic reply to Hayne, in advocacy of the perpetuity of the Union. Her address on “What is the Significance of the Red Cross in its Relation to Philanthropy” is hardly less meritorious. Her address at Saratoga on “International and National Relief in War” is more than a literary gem; it is a compendium of humanitarian history—of Red Cross philosophy. No similar humanitarian address even approximates it, in wisdom and argument.

Through seven years, in the field of letters and politics, there raged a war against woe, a war led by a Master Spirit. Humanity won—won through that Master Spirit. That Master Literary Spirit, says another great woman, has “won the hearts of the women of the world.” She not only “walked like a benediction of her God amid the desolate, the stricken, the hungry and despairing,” but she walked and talked and lived “in pulses stirred to generosity.” Her pathos of sentiment and elegance of diction won the hearts of the American people, won Congress, won the President, won the Red Cross for America. And “the Red Cross in its great and human principles, its far-reaching philanthropy, its innovations upon long established and accepted customs and rules of barbaric cruelty, its wise practical charity, stands forever next to the immortal proclamation of freedom to the slaves that crowns the name of Abraham Lincoln.”

IDA M. TARBELL

Clara Barton got the preliminary experience which led to the
foundation of the Red Cross work, on the battlefields of the Civil
War. I have a high regard for her devotion, her organization
ability.—IDA M. TARBELL.
]

LUCY LARCROM

Even a casual observer can not fail to see in Clara Barton’s work a
unity peculiar to itself—a work which has grown out of a character,
and which no one but herself could have done.—LUCY LARCROM.
]

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE LITERARY WORLD

ELBERT HUBBARD

Clara Barton has given us a constant lesson in thrift; a worker from
infancy, taking neither vacation nor recreation.
]

ALICE HUBBARD

The greatest woman of all times. The people of the United States
admire, revere and devotedly love Clara Barton.
]

_The Fra_—Elbert and Alice Hubbard.

XXXVIII

Clara Barton’s dress was so simple that no one tried to follow her
fashion. ALICE HUBBARD.

For personal adornment Clara Barton cared little, choosing green
dresses in her youth; and ornaments of bright red, for cheer, in her
older years. CORRA BACON-FOSTER, Author.

Dress changes manners. VOLTAIRE.

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others. FRANKLIN.

Ridiculous modes, invented by ignorance, and adopted by folly.

SMOLLETT.

To live to dress well indicates a fool. DR. A. E. WINSHIP.

The plainer the dress with greater luster does beauty appear.

LORD FAIRFAX.

Beauty, like truth, never is so glorious as when it goes plainest.

STERNE.

Those who think that, in order to dress well, it is necessary to dress
extravagantly, make a great mistake. Nothing so well becomes feminine
beauty as simplicity. GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

A plain, genteel dress is more admired and obtains more credit than
lace and embroidery, in the eyes of the judicious and sensible.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

Elizabeth, who died the happy owner of 3,000 dresses, issued a solemn
proclamation against extravagance in dress.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS.

loveliness
Needs not foreign aid of ornament,
But is, when unadorned, adorned most.
THOMSON—_Autumn_.

We sacrifice to dress till household joys and comforts cease. Dress
drains our cellar dry and keeps our larder lean. COWPER.

The dress that shows taste and sentiment is elevating to the home, and
is one of the most feminine means of beautifying the world.

MISS OAKEY.

A lady of genius will give a genteel air to her whole dress by a well
fancied suit of knots, as a judicious writer gives to a whole sentence
by a single expression. GAY.

A rich dress is not worth a straw to one who has a poor mind.

AZ ZUBAIDI.

’Tis the mind that makes the body rich. SHAKESPEARE.

I wear what I want to. CLARA BARTON.

THE ART OF DRESSING—CLARA BARTON’S INDIVIDUALITY

Dress is a sentiment, sentiment of an occasion. Dress is an expression of the attitude of the mind as to propriety, necessary to accomplish results. Like smiles, dress is an expression of the intelligence of the wearer. Dress is an art, one of the highest of the arts. Dress has to do with the form divine and, whether dress be for good or ill, depends on the mind that fashions it. Court dress, then the want of _dress_, Clara Barton disliked and on one occasion would not conform. She thereby missed the honor of being a guest on a state occasion—proffered her by the world’s greatest queen.

There is an individuality of dress, as of conduct. Clara Barton had individuality. There has been no one else like her, and a famous American woman says we shall never again produce her like. In religion she adhered to no creed; in social life, to no rules; in wearing apparel, to no fashion. In service to the world she wished for something to do that no one else would do—something that no one else thought of doing. “Clara Barton was Clara Barton,” individual even in her wearing apparel. The first straw bonnet she ever had she made herself. She cut the green rye; she scalded it; she bleached it in the sun; she cut it into lengths; with her teeth she split the straws into strands, flattening them. She braided the bonnet by the use of eleven strands; she fashioned it to suit herself; she wore it; it was Clara’s individual bonnet, and at 86 years of age she regarded it the great achievement of her life.

When advised by a clerk in a store that a woman of her age should wear lavenders and violets, Clara Barton turned to her shopping companion and said, “I guess she doesn’t know I wear what I want to.” While on the lecture platform, to a limited extent, she conformed to custom and wore trains. On a certain occasion, looking her over from head to feet, an obtrusive flatterer said to her “How stunning!” Floating on a breeze several degrees below zero came from Miss Barton’s lips “_What did you say!_” Nor would she gossip about the dress of others. Says Goethe: The “highest fortune of earth’s children is personality.” Characteristic of her observations on personality rather than of dress, on an occasion when she was a special guest of honor, she thus writes of her hostess: “I want you to know what a beautiful, bright lady I think Mrs. President Hayes to be. She is brilliant and beautiful, brunette with abundant jet black hair, put back over her ears;—she is entirely different from the Grand Duchess of Baden, and still _bright_ and _full of life_, like her.”

Every human being dresses for effect, as does the actress before the footlights—the greater the intelligence the greater the discrimination. Clara Barton was the designer of her own fashions, the mistress of her own stitches. In the use of one of her stitches, she taught the women of Corsica to do more work in one hour than previously they had done in five hours. She found forty thousand people in despair, ill clothed. In her “dress-making shop,” she taught large classes of girls to sew. Daily, with these poor girls,

Plying her needle and thread,—
Stitch! Stitch! Stitch!

she left those people the best clothed people in Europe.

Clara Barton was as proud of her skill with the needle as was Lucretia with the spinning wheel, or Florence Nightingale in the art of nursing. In a western town a lady was discredited, and shunned, because she had been a sewing girl. Appreciating the situation, and ambitious socially, she made her home the center of fashionable sewing circles. She taught fancy crochet, and embroidery stitches; in a very short time she had the aristocratic women at her feet, and became the social leader.

The bright little needle, the swift-flying needle,
The needle directed by beauty and art.

Clara Barton’s apparel was her personal care, and not the care of a _modiste_. While in charge of relief work on a field of disaster, she said I have no clothing, and couldn’t attend to it if I had.” She fully appreciated also that “rags are royal raiment when worn for virtue’s sake.” She would sew on her own buttons, mend, clean, stitch and hemstitch, make and remake, her own clothes,—not only as a matter of economy but as a matter of personal pride.

W. R. SHAFTER

No governmental red tape system could possibly be as effective as were
Clara Barton’s sensible business methods in Cuba.
W. R. SHAFTER.
Brigadier-General Civil War; Major-General
Commanding the American Army in the Spanish-American War.

General Shafter, the kind and courteous officer and gentleman.
CLARA BARTON.
]

Clara Barton received no one until she had donned the, to her, becoming apparel,—the proper bow at the neck, the proper bow in her hair. Everything about her dress must be, to her, _au fait_. Propriety of dress had been a part of her education. She recognized that a tramp seldom gets by the barking dog at the gate, while the door of the palace opens wide to the person well-dressed. And possibly also she entertained the sentiment of Emerson, “The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.” She agreed with Walt Whitman that only personal qualities endure, and dress bespeaks personal qualities.

That she succeeded in the art of dress—that her personal qualities were at all times in the ascendancy, is attested by the fact that the press reporter overlooked her dress, in describing the “ladies’ costumes.” He would describe her very dark, bright eyes, her face as the ideal one which conforms to her character, her raven black hair worn in the fashion of our mothers and grandmothers; or “her hair, black as the raven’s wing, does not follow fashion’s ways but is dressed like Longfellow’s Evangeline, low down on either side of her forehead,” and then possibly dismiss her with the simple statement: “Miss Barton was attired in black silk.”

XXXIX

Clara Barton—her brilliancy and bravery won her a European reputation;
she was decorated with several honorary orders in recognition of her
exploits. Raleigh (N. C.) _Times_.

The whole of Europe is marshaled under the banner of the Red Cross.
CLARA BARTON.

In the Grand Duchy of Baden, woman leads in Red Cross work.

CLARA BARTON.

Scarcely had man made his first move in organizing the Red Cross, when
the jeweled hand of royal woman glistened behind him, and right
royally she has done her part. CLARA BARTON.

Sovereigns deeply interested in the work of the Red Cross will be less
and less disposed to precipitate their peoples into war for light and
trivial causes, for small, or personal, or unworthy ends.

CLARA BARTON.

The patrons of the Red Cross in Europe are always of the Crown, or
royal families, as Empress Augusta of Germany, Victoria of England,
Dagmar of Russia, Marguerite of Italy, and the Royal Grand Duchess of
Baden. CLARA BARTON.

THE JEWELLED HAND AND THE HARD HAND MEET

In the Franco-Prussian War the jeweled hand of the princess and the hard hand of the peasant met, and labored side by side unquestioned and unquestioning in their God-given mission. Side by side they wrought, says Clara Barton, as side by side their dead lay on the battlefield.