Beauty and The Beast by Bayard Taylor (sci fi books to read TXT) 📕

She laid her head again upon his bosom. Hour after hour they sat, and the light swells of the sea heaved them aimlessly to and fro, and the sun burned them, and the spray drenched their limbs. At last Leonard Clare roused himself and looked around: he felt numb and faint, and he saw, also, that her strength was rapidly failing.

“We cannot live much longer, I fear,” he said, clasping her closely in his arms. “Kiss me once, darling, and then we will die.”

She clung to him and kissed him.

“There is life, not death, in your lips!” he cried. “Oh, God, if we should live!”

He rose painfully to his feet, stood, tottering? on the raft, and looked across the waves. Presently he began to tremble, then to sob like a child, and at last spoke, through his tears:

“A sail! a sail!—and heading towards us!”

MRS. STRONGITHARM’S REPORT.

Mr. Editor,—If you ever read the “Burroak Banner” (which you will find among your exchanges, as the editor publishes your prospectus for six weeks every year, and sends no bill to you) my name will not be that of a stranger. Let me throw aside all affectation of humility, and say that I hope it is already and not unfavorably familiar to you. I am informed by those who claim to know that the manuscripts of obscure writers are passed over by you editors without examination—in short, that I must first have a name, if I hope to make one. The fact that an article of three hundred and seventy-five pages, which I sent, successively, to the “North American Review,” the “Catholic World,” and the “Radical,” was in each case returned to me with MY knot on the tape by which it was tied, convinces me that such is indeed the case. A few years ago I should not have meekly submitted to treatment like this; but late experiences have taught me the vanity of many womanly dreams.

You are acquainted with the part I took (I am SURE you must have seen it in the “Burroak Banner” eight years ago) in creating that public sentiment in our favor which invested us with all the civil and political rights of men. How the editors of the “Revolution,” to which I subscribe, and the conventions in favor of the equal rights of women, recently held in Boston and other cities, have failed to notice our noble struggle, is a circumstance for which I will not try to account. I will only say—and it is a hint which SOME PERSONS will understand—that there are other forms of jealousy than those which spring from love.

It is, indeed, incredible that so little is known, outside the State of Atlantic, of the experiment—I mean the achievement—of the last eight years. While the war lasted, we did not complain that our work was ignored; but now that our sisters in other States are acting as if in complete unconsciousness of what WE have done—now that we need their aid and they need ours (but in different ways), it is time that somebody should speak. Were Selina Whiston living, I should leave the task to her pen; she never recovered from the shock and mortification of her experiences in the State Legislature, in ‘64—but I will not anticipate the history. Of all the band of female iconoclasts, as the Hon. Mr. Screed called us in jest—it was no jest afterwards, HIS image being the first to go down—of all, I say, “some are married, and some are dead,” and there is really no one left so familiar with the circumstances as I am, and equally competent to give a report of them.

Mr. Spelter (the editor of the “Burroak Banner”) suggests that I must be brief, if I wish my words to reach the ears of the millions for whom they are designed; and I shall do my best to be so. If I were not obliged to begin at the very beginning, and if the interests of Atlantic had not been swallowed up, like those of other little States, in the whirlpool of national politics, I should have much less to say. But if Mr. George Fenian Brain and Mrs. Candy Station do not choose to inform the public of either the course or the results of our struggle, am I to blame? If I could have attended the convention in Boston, and had been allowed to speak—and I am sure the distinguished Chairwoman would have given me a chance—it would have been the best way, no doubt, to set our case before the world.

I must first tell you how it was that we succeeded in forcing the men to accept our claims, so much in advance of other States. We were indebted for it chiefly to the skill and adroitness of Selina Whiston. The matter had been agitated, it is true, for some years before, and as early as 1856, a bill, drawn up by Mrs. Whiston herself, had been introduced into the Legislature, where it received three votes. Moreover, we had held meetings in almost every election precinct in the State, and our Annual Fair (to raise funds) at Gaston, while the Legislature was in session, was always very brilliant and successful. So the people were not entirely unprepared.

Although our State had gone for Fremont in 1856, by a small majority, the Democrats afterwards elected their Governor; and both parties, therefore, had hopes of success in 1860. The canvass began early, and was very animated. Mrs. Whiston had already inaugurated the custom of attending political meetings, and occasionally putting a question to the stump orator—no matter of which party; of sometimes, indeed, taking the stump herself, after the others had exhausted their wind. She was very witty, as you know, and her stories were so good and so capitally told, that neither Democrat nor Republican thought of leaving the ground while she was upon the stand.

Now, it happened that our Congressional District was one of the closest. It happened, also, that our candidate (I am a Republican, and so is Mr. Strongitharm) was rather favorably inclined to the woman’s cause. It happened, thirdly—and this is the seemingly insignificant pivot upon which we whirled into triumph—that he, Mr. Wrangle, and the opposing candidate, Mr. Tumbrill, had arranged to hold a joint meeting at Burroak. This meeting took place on a magnificent day, just after the oats-harvest; and everybody, for twenty miles around, was there. Mrs. Whiston, together with Sarah Pincher, Olympia Knapp, and several other prominent advocates of our cause, met at my house in the morning; and we all agreed that it was time to strike a blow. The rest of us magnanimously decided to take no part in the concerted plan, though very eager to do so. Selina Whiston declared that she must have the field to herself; and when she said that, we knew she meant it.

It was generally known that she was on the ground. In fact, she spent most of the time while Messrs. Wrangle and Tumbrill were speaking, in walking about through the crowds—so after an hour apiece for the gentlemen, and then fifteen minutes apiece for a rejoinder, and the Star Spangled Banner from the band, for both sides, we were not a bit surprised to hear a few cries of “Whiston!” from the audience. Immediately we saw the compact gray bonnet and brown serge dress (she knew what would go through a crowd without tearing!) splitting the wedge of people on the steps leading to the platform. I noticed that the two Congressional candidates looked at each other and smiled, in spite of the venomous charges they had just been making.

Well—I won’t attempt to report her speech, though it was her most splendid effort (as people WILL say, when it was no effort to her at all). But the substance of it was this: after setting forth woman’s wrongs and man’s tyranny, and taxation without representation, and an equal chance, and fair-play, and a struggle for life (which you know all about from the other conventions), she turned squarely around to the two candidates arid said:

“Now to the practical application. You, Mr. Wrangle, and you, Mr. Tumbrill, want to be elected to Congress. The district is a close one: you have both counted the votes in advance (oh, I know your secrets!) and there isn’t a difference of a hundred in your estimates. A very little will turn the scale either way. Perhaps a woman’s influence—perhaps my voice—might do it. But I will give you an equal chance. So much power is left to woman, despite what you withhold, that we, the women of Putnam, Shinnebaug, and Rancocus counties, are able to decide which of you shall be elected. Either of you would give a great deal to have a majority of the intelligent women of the District on your side: it would already be equivalent to success. Now, to show that we understand the political business from which you have excluded us— to prove that we are capable of imitating the noble example of MEN—we offer to sell our influence, as they their votes, to the highest bidder!”

There was great shouting and cheering among the people at this, but the two candidates, somehow or other, didn’t seem much amused.

“I stand here,” she continued, “in the interest of my struggling sisters, and with authority to act for them. Which of you will bid the most—not in offices or material advantages, as is the way of your parties, but in the way of help to the Woman’s Cause? Which of you will here publicly pledge himself to say a word for us, from now until election-day, whenever he appears upon the stump?”

There was repeated cheering, and cries of “Got ‘em there!” (Men are so vulgar).

I pause for a reply. Shall they not answer me?” she continued, turning to the audience.

“Then there were tremendous cries of “Yes! yes! Wrangle! Tumbrill!”

Mr. Wrangle looked at Mr. Tumbrill, and made a motion with his head, signifying that he should speak. Then Mr. Tumbrill looked at Mr. Wrangle, and made a motion that HE should speak. The people saw all this, and laughed and shouted as if they would never finish.

Mr. Wrangle, on second thoughts (this is my private surmise), saw that boldness would just then be popular; so he stepped forward.

“Do I understand,” he said, “that my fair and eloquent friend demands perfect political and civil equality for her sex?”

“I do!” exclaimed Selina Whiston, in her firmest manner.

“Let me be more explicit,” he continued. “You mean precisely the same rights, the same duties, the same obligations, the same responsibilities?”

She repeated the phrases over after him, affirmatively, with an emphasis which I never heard surpassed.

“Pardon me once more,” said Mr. Wrangle; “the right to vote, to hold office, to practise law, theology, medicine, to take part in all municipal affairs, to sit on juries, to be called upon to aid in the execution of the law, to aid in suppressing disturbances, enforcing public order, and performing military duty?”

Here there were loud cheers from the audience; and a good many voices cried out: “Got her there!” (Men are so very vulgar.)

Mrs. Whiston looked troubled for a moment, but she saw that a moment’s hesitation would be fatal to our scheme, so she brought out her words as if each one were a maul-blow on the butt-end of a wedge:

“All—that—we—demand!”

“Then,” said Mr. Wrangle, “I bid my support in exchange for the women’s! Just what the speaker demands, without exception or modification—equal privileges, rights, duties and obligations, without regard to the question of sex! Is that broad enough?”

I was all in a tremble when it came to that. Somehow