St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-03-21
Woman in Politics.

1t is not often that the death of lady
spreads dismay through the political
world, but undoubtedly dismay was the
first feeling created by the tidings of the
death of Lady Salisbury. What, said
every one instinctively, would be the ef-
feet of the calamity on her husband
Men recalled the old romance-how
Lord Robert Cecil had fought for his
choice; how the young couple. left for a
time without means, set themselves to
live by work like any other struggling
professionals; how they succeeded in
keeping the wolf from the door; and how,
when the blind Lord Cranborne passed
Unexpectedly away, Lord Robert and
his wife glided into their new position as
heirs of Hatfield as If it had always been
theirs. The struggling period was amply
paid for. Lady Salisbury inherited from
her father, man of rare abilities, partly
hidden from the world by his lack of self
assertion, the kind of efficiency always
needed in great houses, though not al
WAYS found, and for thirty years of her
reign at Hatfield she lifted from her hus-
band the burden of domestic cares, be-
coming the gentle ruler and pivot of the
large family which grew up around her
and remained, thanks to her influence,
always united and content.
Had the times been different we should
have feared great misfortune for Eng
land, the withdrawal of Lord Salisbury
into the library and the laboratory to
wait for the future, active only in his
thoughts. Happily there is no danger of
that now. Those who have watched
Lord Salisbury closely know that there
is in him, as in many men who are at
once strong and nervous, a quality of
patience in the presence of facts he can
not alter, which is, if there can be such
thing, resignation springing from intellect
and he will fight on in sadness as he
fought on in content. Witha great war
on hand, and all Europe watching with
more or less hostile eyes, he cannot quit
the helm, or refuse to Tighten the burden
on the Queen, and he will go forward as
before, never sanguine, never quite believ-
ing the talk around him, but finding in
himself and his colleagues resource enough
to meet each difficulty as it arises, find
ing, too, that the resource is greatest
when the difficulty is great.
The history of England has been re-
markable for the absence of ruling wo.
men-we can hardly recall one since the
death of the terrible Duchess, Sarah len
nings. Our manners, and possibly some
thing too in English feminine nature,
have compelled them, even when ambi-
tious, to remain in the shade, or content
themselves with a social distinction
which, important when the country was
governed by about fifty families, has lost
much of its meaning now that ultimate
power resides with eight millions of
electors, of whom seven scarcely know
the great ladies" names. The queen of
society" is today, for political purposes,
queen of very small country. And yet
if secret history were ever truthful instead
of dramatic, how much our politics would
be seen to have owed to women. Half
our statesmen would have been different
but for the women about them and their
council. Men, and especially men of &C.
ton, are not made by their wives, but
they are profoundly modified by them;
and many man whom the world thinks
great has been saved from rashness by
his wife's sense, or inspired with firmness
by her decision that there must be no
change of course. We have tancy-it
needs the experience of thousand men
to be sure-that women in politics are
rather frmer than most men; that they
have, in fact, more difficulty in Enclosing
their wills when they are once shut.
They think clearly, but take short views,
and are rarely ''sicklied DER" with that
"pale cast of thought" which by Undue
ing men to look too far forward indis-
poses them for action. The political
Queens-Isabella OF CASTLE, Mary Tudor,
Mary of Scots, the Empress Catherine,
and Louisa of Prussia, who ruled though
she did not reign-have been very resolute
women, and there is no reason that we
know OF why they should be radically
different from the remainder of their sex.
/ London Spectator.