Biographical Introduction

HELENA BOR'S ce village May 11, 1860. An only child, she

́ELENA BORN'S childhood was happy and uneventful. She was

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attended the day-school at Hatherleigh, receiving later the groundwork of a sound education in an academy at Taunton. She excelled in her studies, evinced a taste for mathematics, and looked longingly toward a college training. Though this ambition was never realized, the wide world became her university, wherein she was ever graduating from endeavor to achievement.

When her family moved to Bristol she advanced step by step into the broader currents of thought, but found herself struggling for expression against a well-nigh insuperable diffidence that was never entirely overcome, though in later years it became one of her sweetest and most lovable qualities. In Bristol Helena naturally entered the coterie of men and women who in the metropolis of the west of England eagerly followed the intellectual and public interests of the day. She became an active worker in the Bristol Women's Liberal Association, seeking freedom and equality for women through suffrage, civic reform, and political education, and for several years was a member of the Executive Committee of the Association.

A letter from an early friend affords a glimpse of Helena Born at this period. She writes:

"When we first met, Helena had just recently lost her mother, who had been like a sister to her. They had been perfect companions, and she felt her mother's death terribly. Being now her father's housekeeper, domestic duties took up a large part of her time. She often came home with me from rehearsals, and sometimes engaged in earnest conversation with my father on social and political topics. At that time she certainly had ideas of her own, expressing them in a rapid, nervous

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manner. After a vigorous argument with father she would become silent, though not convinced by him, and would then end up with a laugh. Helena loved music, played the piano, and sang in the choir of the Oakfield Road Unitarian Church in Bristol, of which Mr. Hargreeves was pastor. She liked his preaching, which was of the broadest, but admired even more that of Stopford Brooke, who occupied the pulpit there for a short time.

"We attended a debating society attached to the church, and she would often force herself to rise and speak, if only a few words. Such was her extreme diffidence that I alone knew what the effort cost her. I remember how she enjoyed a whole day we spent together in the country. We walked miles and miles, and ate our lunch sitting up on a haymow. We sometimes went to dances together, and once went up to London to visit the Exhibition. She had many interests outside her home, devoting what time she could to them. Her people disapproved of her course in taking up public questions, which was a great trial to her, but did not affect her convictions or what she believed to be her duty."

Her intellectual interests, as represented by her reading, embraced a wide field. At sixteen she was already familiar with many popularly written works of science, besides the standard English authors. In succeeding years her studies included the works of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, and Haeckel. Economics she pursued through Bastiat and John Stuart Mill; while her theological tendencies are indicated by her reading of Ingersoll's orations, the writings of Bradlaugh, Thomas Paine, and Leslie Stephen. In literature her tastes led her to Browning, Lowell, George Eliot, Thackeray, Emerson, not to mention Swinburne, Shelley, Keats, and Lytton. Besides which she followed closely the leading monthly magazines and quarterly reviews. It was not till she was about twenty-eight years old that Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" came into her hands and, like Thoreau's writings, which through "Walden" she first knew a year afterwards, exerted a lasting

influence on her mind. About the same time she read the works of the engraver-poet William Blake, of Walter Pater, and the dramas of Ibsen. Edward Carpenter's Towards Democracy" produced an unfading impression and always remained an intimate companion. She also read the social and economic writings of John Ruskin, besides most of the current works on socialism and kindred subjects.

Among Helena's associates in the Liberal Association was a woman about her own age, with whom an important period of her life became identified. No account of Helena Born would be complete without mention of Miriam Daniell. It was under her influence that Helena's energies burst into that flame of social consciousness that burned bright and pure to the end. To this beautiful, gifted woman she became united in ties of closest sympathy and comradeship.

Miriam was an artist, a poet, and a socialist. Her studies in economics, her intimate knowledge of the lives of the working people, and her deep sympathy with them in their efforts to improve their lot led naturally to her embracing the socialist gospel, then spreading amongst the advanced guard of the labor movement. In the course of frequent walks into the country in all weathers Miriam imparted to Helena her own enthusiasm. They were kindred souls, both richly endowed with the artistic temperament, and sought the natural beauties of field and flower, rain and sunshine, and in them found joy and inspiration. Thus could they comprehend the message of Thoreau and Whitman, whom they now read together, dreaming of the ideal fellowship.

Not only was Miriam herself an artist of no mean ability, but she had drawn within her circle gifted men and women, artists, musicians, those who cherished ideals, and to this atmosphere she introduced her dear friend. Like Miriam, Helena resided in Clifton, the fashionable suburb of Bristol. But both women held lightly their position among the privileged. Luxuries and all the fine things that wealth can secure for those who seek only comfort and pleasure were to them as dross. They held that social regeneration would come only through the sim

plification of life. The useless and often baneful luxuries enjoyed by one class had their obverse in the want of even the simple necessaries of healthy existence from which another class suffered. Simplicity in dress, in house-furnishings, in tastes and habits, was therefore a cardinal tenet of their faith. It was furthermore in harmony with their artistic conceptions. As carried out by them there was beauty in simplicity, and it was a sound doctrine also from the point of personal hygiene. Applying it thus, they became vegetarians, for which course they adduced other reasons, ethical and humanitarian; so it happened that during all the years that followed both were earnest and consistent vegetarians.

But perhaps the chief consideration which led them to emphasize simplicity of life and carry it out in every direction was, as has been hinted, their socialistic view that a large part of the world's work was useless.

In ministering to artificial tastes, silly fashions, and unsocial customs, the labor of a considerable portion of the producing classes was utterly wasted; hence the producers themselves were exhausting their energies to supply the multitudinous demands of the idle rich, while unable to secure for themselves a sufficiency of wholesome sustenance.

It became the duty, therefore, of every one impressed with these views to make personal and united effort toward better economic conditions. It was not merely by theorizing, or by preaching, that these young women endeavored to spread the gospel of simplicity and naturalness in the daily life, but by personal example, the actual living of their ideal. This is the key-note of the later development of Helena Born's life.

Opportunity soon came to test their principles, as well as their fitness for the work that lay before them. First of all, a flood had visited the low-lying district of Bristol, where lived the very poor, and down among these went Miriam and Helena as the water receded, and here, in their endeavors to relieve the acute suffering, they learned how to gain the confidence of the humbler population. Not in the guise of charity, but

as co-workers, anxious to be of service, they sought to win the hearts of their less fortunate brothers and sisters.

Hard upon the flood came the awakening of the working people throughout the land, first manifested in the great London Dock Strike of 1889. The spirit of revolt was in the air, and penetrated to the remotest parts of England. Bristol soon became a center of agitation, and here was formed a branch of the Gas Workers' and General Laborers' Union, which was then uniting unskilled and hitherto unorganized labor in all parts of the country. Of the Bristol branch Helena Born became secretary and Miriam Daniell treasurer, both honorary offices. It was characteristic of the new labor movement that it absorbed the most earnest and energetic leaders in the socialist ranks. To the work of organization they brought a potent sense of the dignity no less than the solidarity of labor. They infused the movement with an ethical ideal having the compelling force of a religious conviction.

Under such influences the two friends entered upon the arduous task of securing, through agitation and organization, shorter hours, higher wages, and more equitable conditions for laborers of both sexes. Nor were their efforts unavailing. It was a period of commercial prosperity, and in several industries the demands of the wage-earners were granted. But in many cases strikes appeared to be the only means to gain concessions; and in every industrial center throughout Great Britain strikes became the order of the day. Not that the revolt was due to the activity of the agitators, who were themselves merely embodiments of the prevailing spirit of unrest, but it arose spontaneously amongst the toilers seeking a modicum of justice.

Miriam and Helena became active leaders in the movement in Bristol. They seemed to be needed everywhere at once. Every class of labor desiring to organize, every new strike, demanded their presence. As officers of the central council they were called upon to address meetings, lead parades, collect funds, distribute relief, encourage the timid, and restrain the violent during a period of immense popular excitement.