Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/281

 Chews Battery. 281

In shaping and developing what is called the new literary move- ment in the South, she has shown herself to be a far more versatile worker than the men more artistic and more conscientious.

She has made herself felt in art, in science and in the schools; she has taken a place in the ranks of the journalists; she has a place on the stage and the platform ; she is to be found in many of the trades that are next door to the arts, in the professions and in business; she is stenographying, typewriting, clerking, dairying, gardening; she is to be found, in short, wherever there is room for her, and her field is always widening.

I think she will exercise a mellowing and restraining influence on the ripping and snorting age just ahead of us the rattling and groaning age of electricity. What part she may play in the woman's rights movement of the future it is difficult to say. Just now she has no aptitude in that direction. She has been taught to believe that the influences that are the result of a happy home-life are more powerful and more important elements of politics than the casting of a ballot ; and in this belief she seems to be at one with an over- whelming majority of American women the mothers and daughters who are the hope and pride of the Republic.

Yet she is an earnest and untiring temperance worker. Conserva- tive in all other directions, she is inclined to be somewhat radical in her crusade against rum. She is inclined to fret and grieve a little over the fact that public opinion failed to keep pace with her desires. The wheels of legislation do not move fast enough for her, and she is inclined to wonder at it. In the innocence of her heart she has never suspected that there is a demijohn in the legislative committee-room.

There is no question and no movement of real importance in which she is not interested. Her devotion and self-sacrifice in the past have consecrated her to the future, and her sufferings and privations have taught her the blessings of charity in its largest and last interpretation.

[From the Winchester (Va.) Times, October 22, 1890.]

CHEW'S BATTERY.

REUNION OF OCTOBER, 1890.

It has occurred to me that the last days of Chew's famous old bat- tery under his command as captain, and after his promotion, under