Edith Brower

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September 17, 1832 - The Wilkes-Barre Record
Death Takes Club Founder
Miss Edith Brower, Writer, Lecturer, Was in Her 84th Year

Miss Edith Brower, idealist, writer, lecturer, founder of what is now Wyoming Valley Woman's club, and a descendent of one of the oldest families in the country, died at her home, 60 North Franklin street, of general debility yesterday morning. Her health began to fail four years ago, but she had been critically ill for only ten days.

She was born in New Orleans on August 24, 1848, and was brought to Wilkes-Barre when nine months of age.

Wyoming Valley Woman's club, founded by her, was first the Town Improvement society, later the Sociological club, and then the Civic club before the present name was adopted. Its purpose was to arouse civic consciousness to the need of preserving the natural beauty of the city and to awaken a latent sense of civic responsibility.

Miss Brower, an idealist all her life, found keen delight in all beauty, even after advancing years forced her retirement from active pursuit of beauty in art, literature, music and natural surroundings. Always as generous as her means would allow, she aided students of music, art and literature to a degree that will never be publicly known.

As a young woman she was a zealous worker in field work of the Presbyterian church, and taught classes in the old Empire Sunday school, now Grant Street Presbyterian church, under the super tendency of the late Dr. C. C. Beck, and at the Coalbrook mission.

As a woman of middle years she saw that Wilkes-Barre was past the village stage of its growth and felt that the city was fast becoming a large community who residents did not sense the fact. Decrying the community's neglect of littered streets, unkept yards, uncared for river bank and lack of parks, she set about to remedy these conditions.

The well known story of her disdain of the "man who spat on Franklin street" brought laughter, then serious attention, then an ordinance prohibiting spitting on city streets. Through organization of women in sympathy with her ideals, she achieved other reforms which did much to make Wilkes-Barre more beautiful and more civic-minded.

Ever ready to welcome newcomers to the city, she made herself known to them and introduced them into congenial circles where they might feel at home and become really a part of the community.

She found and aided talent. Hers was the first appreciative criticism of Edwin Arlington Robinson, who might have waited many years for recognition had she not seen his worth.

Miss Brower had talent of her own. She wrote musical criticisms and magazine articles, for many years contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, and was author of Little Old Wilkes-Barre.

Her family was one of the oldest in the country, and she was eligible for membership in the Holland Dames and Daughters of the American Revolution.

Her father, George Clinton Brower, was born at Southold, Long Island, and was a direct descendent of Jan Brouwer, who came to New Amsterdam in 1687 and two years later sent for his bride-to-be, Afgie van Gelden. The next generation changed the spelling of the name to its present form.

Her mother was the former Louise Leroy Gardiner of New York. She was one of three sisters famed for their beauty a century ago. She was a direct descendent of Lion Gardiner, who came to America in 1635 and obtained the grant of a small island off the coast of Long Island in 1639. The island, known since as Gardiner's island, was in the family's possession until the last generation.

Captain Kidd, one of history's famed pirates, landed at the island in 1699 and, without disclosing his means of livelihood, made the acquaintance of Lion Gardiner and secured from him supplies for a voyage. The family history records his conduct as that of a gentleman.

While on the island Captain Kidd buried treasure, gold, silver and jewels, which were later found by the Gardiners and restored to the rightful owners, with the exception of one silver coin which was kept as a memento.

Lion Gardiner's daughter, Elizabeth, born on September 14, 1641, was the first child of English parents to be born in the New York colony. The oldest sons of the families which have descended from the first Lion Gardiner have been given the name Lion.

Miss Brower's grandfather, Dr. John Gardiner, gained fame in his time as the one doctor who was able to cure lockjaw, and epidemic of which struck Long Island.

Miss Brower's nearest relatives are her cousins, Miss Effie Parsons of New York, who has cared for her during the past five years, and Archibald Parsons of Providence, R. I.

Private funeral services will be held on Friday Morning with Rev. Paul S, Heath, D. D., of the First Presbyterian Church officiating. Burial will be in Hollenback cemetery. Friends are asked to omit flowers.



Town Improvement - Letters

Wilkes-Barre Times - June 14, 1895
Town Improvement
At last our meeting to discuss town improvement is arranged. We have our chairman, our speakers, and I think it is safe to say we have our audience. If all the people come who say they are coming, it will be a very lively meeting indeed. We shall "make things hum". But things are going to hum anyway. Let no one dream that having put our hand to the plough, we improvers are going to turn back, even in the face of discouragements. I don't like to use the word discouragement, so very cheerful and unanimous has been the reception of our new idea. I can't say there are no blankets in soak for us, but the first wet one has yet to be cast. The extended hand, the ready smile, the hearty words, "I am with you" , these are the outward and visible signs which betoken the inward and spiritual condition of mind on the part of all whom we encounter.

Yes, Wilkes-Barre is just pining to be clean. She has long suffered in silence though why I can't imagine, or she has only whispered her distress, hoping that somebody would boldly shout it out. Now that it has been shouted out, the echo is prompt, loud and endlessly reverberating. This is not an exaggeration. The same thing is heard everywhere. The yields are white for the harvest, and the reapers promise to be many.

We are constantly asked what are plans are. It is yet to be organized, but it is safe to say that at the start, we shall direct our efforts toward tidying up what we have, and then go on to acquire more.

What's the use of getting more parks while the River Common remains in its present state? It might be worse, that's is the best word I can speak for it now. And that word I cannot speak for the Public Square park (?) O ye city fathers and ye city mothers, and ye city sons and daughters, what are you all thinking of that you can tolerate such a spot for one day? I ask myself what have I been thinking of that I did not cry aloud sooner. I am mortified to the depths of my being every time I cross that park of Public Disgrace.


I was called a "Town Improvement crank" the other day. If things don't mend soon, I shall become a Town Improvement fiend. There are several friends ready to join me, both men and women. I wonder, tell me, Mr. Editor, do you really think it very cranky in me to insist that after having a fine, hard expensive pavement and going all over it and mending it, it is barbarous and not civilized to them to allow it to be torn up again? We have just endured the unpleasantness of a street strewn with picked-up dry asphalt and smelling wet asphalt, lumbering, noisy machines and a noisy crew of laborers, and now we see those dreadful steam pipes laid along the curb and know that for weeks, perhaps months, one must undergo the same unpleasantness and worse. Is it cranky to complain of this?

The people of our county are wonderfully quick at inventions of all sorts and at finding new ways of doing things. But we are woefully slow and obstinate in learning things the old world has learned and could teach us. What European city would permit a fine, permanent pavement to be laid in its streets, without first looking out that adequate underground facilities were provided for carrying all necessary pipes for the various needs of a large community? I repeat it, our methods of procedure in the management of our streets are barbarous and not civilized.

Yours in righteous indignation,
Edith Brower
June 13, 1895



Paper: Wilkes-Barre Times - June 29, 1895
An Appeal for Citizens to Turn Out to Next Meeting
At the meeting on June 19, one of the speakers on Town Improvement said that it was like Castoria. Children would cry for it. The children have begun to cry. We rather like their impatience, especially when it is expressed publicly. One kind of advertisement is just as good as another, in such movements as ours. The chief thing is to keep it before people's minds. But if people think that the Town Improvement society has been folding its hands and snoring, people are mightily mistaken. As far as I am concerned, the past ten days have been the busiest of my life; Town Improvement business has been my chief concern. But the details of organizing such a business are not as simple as preparing for a moonlight picnic at Mountain Park.

Through, deliberation, caution, and kindred qualities are quite necessary as energy and expedition.

But I ought not to be obliged to explain this, it is as self-evident as the nose on your editorial face.

If everybody who can, will come to our next meeting which is to be on Tuesday evening, July 2, in St. Stephens parish building, he and she will gain further enlightenment as to the doings and plans of the society. We particularly desire that all of those who were present before should come. Some of them are now away, but there are plenty left in town.
Edith Brower



Wilkes-Barre Times - February 20, 1897
"Where Are the Twelve?"
Miss Brower Make some Suggestion for Spring Work
The sun, even on these cold days, is growing very warm; the sparrows are making believe they are song-birds, and chirping almost musically. Seed catalogues are flying about the country; winter bonnets and gowns are just beginning to look a little seedy, and the T. I. S. are going to paint their rubbish cans green! If all this does not mean that Spring is coming than I'm no weather prophet. The last item means something more. It means that the T. I. S. has no mind to give up the fight it has waged with more or less success these two years past. No, sir, the fight is on yet, and we have two watchwords: Patience and Perseverance. Very "chestnutty", are they not? Well, the words are common enough, but where, oh tell me, do you find the things very plentiful and flourishing.? At the headquarters of the Wilkes-Barre Improvement Society. Full stock on hand, always of fresh quality, given away to anybody who lacketh the same and who will take the trouble to come begging.

On the 2nd of March we hold our annual meeting. there will not be quite as much to report of progress this year as there was last year, but this does not indicate a going backward. The work has gone on all the time in various quiet ways that perhaps are more practically effective than much horn-blowing, processions, etc. A great many people have privately asked to do thing which they have promptly done. Others have been asked to do things which they have not done at all, but at least these individuals have been set thinking, also, they know what other people think of them!

Nearly a thousand badges have been given to as many school children, the distribution always being accompanied by addresses on the subject of improvement to streets and homes such as is possible for children to accomplish.

I will say again what I have said often before, that we consider the least work done among the little ones worth twice as much as the greatest work done among the grown-ups. Perhaps the "twelve men" the "Times" was clamoring for last evening are now in knickerbockers, chewing gum and doing "sums". I hope we shall not have to wait for this particular twelve to come of age before many desirable reforms are established, many desirable acquisitions made, such as Riverside Park on the opposite bank.

Truly, no joking, we ought to have that land. If we do not get it, we shall never cease to regret our indifference. Every year it is a harder task to accomplish, for the land will be sold out in bits and grow dearer. Its possession or its loss will make all the difference to Wilkes-Barre between a charming and a common place town. If shouting would do any good, I would strangle my pride and go shouting at every well-to-do citizens' door until he should come out and say "Take my purse and go buy the land but stop your noise!" Fortunately, for my pride, and my reputation, and the citizens' comfort, shouting won't do any good.

Let us leave public spirit out of the count, let us consider selfishness merely, a thirst for the praise of our fellow citizens; a desire for everlasting glorification. What., I ask, could better satisfy these lower lusts in the hearts of the wealthier men and women of Wilkes-Barre (I take it they are human enough to have a few of the lower lusts) than a generous expenditure of their surplus wealth in the purchase of that strip of land across the river? That pretty bank is our face, so to speak. Build it over with ugly houses, they are sure to be ugly, and it is as if some one threw vitriol in our face, our beauty is gone forever. If I were worth a million or two, you should see ______!. But such a promise is in vain. What is not in vain is my determination to adopt the character of a gad-fly. and my song shall be, Buy that land across the river, and the only way to stop my singing will be to listen to my singing and do what it urges. It isn't a poor little song of my own invention, I've been pit up to singing it. There's a chorus to it, and I know a number of men who are nearly ready to join in the chorus. Here's a few of them: Mr. Charles Miner, Mr. Bedford, Mr. E. H. Chase, and yourself, Mr. Editor. I can be sure of your voice. I know a lot of women too, who will swell the harmony of this strain, but their names shall not be thus publicly exposed.

I can't close this long letter without a word about the trees of our city. This is to tree year, we intend giving especial attention to the preserving of those we already have, moreover we wish to encourage people to plant more where they are lacking. Shade can be too dense, but this is no reason for not having any shade at all. Those who do plant out new trees this spring are particularly enjoined to protect them with wire or other frames. Tie posts are remarkably scarce in some parts of our village. To use a tree for a tie post is barbarous, it is cruel. I believe that the man who is reverent of the life of a tree will be more kind, respectful and reverent to his mother, wife, child, than one who minds not at all seeing a horse gnaw a young sapling to death. Be kind to the trees.
Edith Brower
February 20, 1897



Letters from Trip to Europe

Wilkes-Barre Times - November 18, 1897
Town Improvement
Miss Brower Writes some of some Things She Saw in Europe
It has for a long while been my intention to write you something about Town Improvement, as that subject appears to one lately come from the Other Side. I will state broadly at once that my views on the matter were not changed in the least by my glimpses of Europe. Wilkes-Barre looked neither better or worse to me for having seen Paris, Geneva, etc. I knew perfectly well before going away that our town might easily and without additional expense of money, but only an expense of just pride exhibiting itself in a reasonable carefulness on the part of individuals, be fifty percent better looking than it is. I knew this by instinct, let us say, and no additional experience was needed to rub the knowledge in deeper. But there are many who do not appear to know this instinctively or in any other way. To them, possibly, my experience may be of some use.

On leaving home I resolved to forget that such a place as Wilkes-Barre existed, that is, a place to be improved. In keeping this resolve, I succeeded so well as to learn much less than I might have learnt regarding those Transatlantic methods of making and keeping cities clean and beautiful. Only the very patent things such as fairly thrust themselves in my face, so to speak, were noted by me. But general impressions are often as good as particular ones and sometimes they last longer, because, being general, they are more broadly applicable. Hence they go on applying themselves when the particular impression, applicable to a few cases only, fades away from disuse.

The strongest general impression I received in the European countries I saw, was this. That their ordinances are made for the purpose of being observed. This simple statement contains words of suggestion, it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it or expand it. Yet let us for one moment suppose that our own ordinances were made with the same end in view. It requires a violent straining of the imagination, but some of your readers will be capable of it. Well then, that being the case, would our merchants, say, for example, of East Market street, continue to sweep out their places into the street after the city sweepers have done their careful work? No, Mr. Editor, those gentlemen would be pounced upon by the authorities (Have we authorities here? If so, who are they?) and would be shortly reminded of the ordinance forbidding them at any time to make the street a receptacle for their refuse.

In Zurich and other places I saw carts with covers, observe please, with lid-like covers, that went about daily to take up rubbish. People would run out with boxes and baskets of scraps to be put in these carts which, by means of the lids carried away every kind of stuff through the city without any danger of its blowing off. Now Wilkes-Barre has an ordinance commanding that rubbish be carried in covered wagons. How many people know this? How many care whether they themselves or anybody else observes it?

And who that thinks is not aware of the moral effect of constantly violating known laws or permitting them to be violated?

In Paris I was told that since the Republic started, there has been a tendency to be easy with the people in some small regards. As one consequence of this leniency, certain parts of that fine city are not so clean-appearing as could be desired. Yet, even there, so slight comparatively are the signs of untidiness as hardly to merit notice, save that one looks for civic perfection in Paris above all other places. But the most notable thing of all is the regard for beauty everywhere. The minuteness of this regard, the details of it, that is, are sometimes amusing. The blocks of stone deposited along the Seine embankments for the next exposition buildings are piled as carefully and symmetrically as if they were to stand forever. If earth or sand of any such material is wanted in the streets, it is not simply dumped there, as with us. It is made into a smooth, well-shaped pile, and packed so as to keep it in form for some days. The very dirt sweepings are gathered into these compact pyramids, although they are to lie but a short time before being taken up. As a consequence of all of this acre, the streets never present an untidy or ugly appearance, since even the rubbish is made to assume a certain ornamental aspect. And the result of such attention to appearances is most educating to the people who are never allowed to grow accustomed to unsightliness. I know well what many Americans have to say to this. They will begin by the general sweeping assertion that it's all nonsense and then go on to say that such customs are child's play and would, if adopted by us, make us into old maids, that American citizens have too many important matters taking their attention to spend their time arranging dirt piles, etc., etc.

Well sometimes I think American citizens mistake the truest objects of importance in their haste to get ahead of somebody else they overlook the educative value of certain thing, of certain methods of doing things. They do not realize, for example, the direct influence for good upon a community which comes from a nice public care of public property. The direct effect of such an influence is distinctly seen in the few foreign cities I visited, most notable in Switzerland, where the respect shown by the authorities for streets, parks, and public places makes it easy to enforce regulations compelling respect from the public. In fact, helps to create a respect, on the part of all for that which is to benefit all. And this respect for common property easily and naturally extends to private property. Such as beauty in back streets I have never seen as in Geneva and Zurich, yet some of these streets are no wider than our pavements. But they are clean and every little French window, in those high, dark houses has its flower box. Try to picture a New York slum flower-decorated from pavement to cornice!

Such decorations hardly cost anything saving a little time and attention, yet what an intimate charm do they not add to a dark, dingy, poor neighborhood! Everywhere are these signs of a sense for beauty on the part of the common people. The arrangement of wares in their infinitesimal shops show it, the preparation of their market wagons show it. Would Wilkes-Barre applaud or hiss if Mr. Newett, for example, were to enter town some morning on a cart containing white turnips piled pyramidally and surrounded by a fringe of large green leaves neatly laid around and quite concealing the sides of his wagon. And suppose he was followed by another wagon similarly adorned with leaves and containing yellow turnips alone, or carrots? Methinks even now I hear the guffaws that would greet his attempts to "make things pretty" and the names he would be called by. I saw two such carts as this entering Paris. They made the lovely streets more lovely for they were objects of real beauty and it pleased me to imagine the loving care with which the marketman had made ready his contribution not only to Parisian stomachs, but to Parisians eyes.

Ah, my American friends and country men and fellow townsmen, there was a n old women, you know, who lived upon nothing but victuals and drink and yet, we are told, this old woman could never keep quiet. I am inclined to think her disquietude arose from this very fact. Had she had something else, something better, to live upon than victuals and drink (in other words, more spiritual and less carnal food) she would doubtless have been rid of much of that nervousness of hers. Mother Goose meant the American people when she wrote that rhyme, I am sure of it. They think more of their pockets and their stomachs than they do of anything else.

I am not a pessimist, Mr. Editor, you know I am not. I am criminally optimistic at times and refuse to look at evil tendencies or what appear to be such. I always believe that the best is going to happen, in the end. But the end is far off for some folk. "In quietness shall be your strength", says the Good Book. We have not learned that strength yet as a people, we are thinking too much how to get victuals and drink.
Yours hopefully nevertheless,
Edith Brower
November 18, 1897.


Miss Brower's Ocean Voyage
(Wilkes-Barre Times - July 16, 1897)
We had all our bad weather at the start, and now we are approaching land in calm seas and under soft, warm skies. This is a slow going line. I have christened it the Cow line. It is leisurely and steady as the Dutch folk who man it.

You should see our captain. He might sit for a splendid typical portrait of the entire Teutonic race. Our first mate (second officer) is a perfect beauty of the Holland type, his face is like a flattened pumpkin, but he is a gentleman in every grain of him. All the officers, stewards, and servants are charming, obliging and comportable to deal with, except the purser, but we'll say no more about him.

We have named the waiter at our table Sancho Panza for he unites a sober, earnest, shrewd humor with a most winning simplicity. When he is not serving table he is playing the cornet as one of the band that daily, and, it would seem, every other hourly, discourses to us in musical terms if not toras. Their instruments have all a verdigris sore-throat, but the good Dutch trumpeter and drummers think they are making it pleasant for us, so we listen and applaud their rattling pieces and now and then ask for something mild or dreamy such as Lorelel, or Anuchen van Thorsu.

I have always been told the Dutch were a clean people, but I find them cleaner then clean. After a thing is well washed they wash it again and yet again. I came on deck at 6 o'clock this morning when the scrubbing was going on. It was like being in a thunder shower.

For the greater part of our voyage we have had good winds and smooth going, but on the second day out we encountered a gale that should satisfy the most arden lover of wild weather. During two days nearly everybody was sick, on one of them quite everybody, myself included, was sick, except officers and crew, and I can't be sure of them. The boat had to be closed up tight, port holes, air shafts and all.

Do not think I went to bed that night, money would not have enticed me to go below. I stayed on deck with my chair lashed to the bar, tucked in with plenty of wraps. I managed to sleep sweetly whenever it was not necessary to hold on to the bar over my head. Sometimes the ship tilted on her head, sometimes she rolled on her tail end, mostly she wallowed from side to side until her bows were perpendicular and the sides dripped after. It was a pleasant experience as a change from plain ordinary going-to-bed experience. Afterwards in learning that some of the officers thought it the roughest night they had ever encountered, I marveled and took in a new respect for myself albeit my age had been but ignorance. It may be wondered at that I was not ordered yet. It was the captain himself who tied me fast. The next night after my one shaky day, I stayed out again. I went to sleep saying over and over with an inward sing-song. And the land lubbers lie down below ... Not a single one of the land lubbers had slept a wink the preceding night, while I brave innocent had waked as fresh as a sea swallow. This second night both the captain and the second officer tried to persuade me that it was cold, each one waking me up to tell me so. Perhaps it was cold but I wasn't, being done up in extra wraps, mummy-wise, so that I could not stir all night. Yet in the morning I wasn't even stiff.

We have numerous nationalities aboard, chiefly Dutch and French. A cheerful lot they are. The Hollanders, it would appear, consider themselves jokers. Our lieutenant commander informed me that "the Dutch are full of jokes". Well, I tried joking with him. It was not a success. I fear he takes me a very serious person.

The most interesting object ... we have is a stoker who wouldn't stoke (and I don't blame him), as he was shut up in the dungeon. The dungeon is a pleasant, commodious apartment with plenty of light and a commanding view of the sea and the passers-by. This rebellious stoker is apparently of good courage and a wise philosopher although a six months sentence awaits him, he sings in a lusty voice to himself and practices gymnastic exercises. I hope all the other stokers won't follow his example for we very much want to see land. It really seems as if we ought to be arriving somewhere. I begin to consider the Atlantic Ocean unnecessarily large and would like to inhabit again three-quarters of which did not consist of water. Why should the fish in the sea be given such an advantage over man?

This morning there is great excitement among us. "Land" is the cry on all sides. The S... Isles are raising their rocky heads to the northeast. A light-house is plainly visible, the boat is surrounded by sea-gulls, steamers and other crafts are growing more frequent. I feel like Columbus. Yesterday I could scarcely believe the ocean was not infinite, today there is the stench of dry land in the air.

Under the circumstances you will not look for further word from me at present. My next letter will be written from Paris.
Edith Brower


As Miss Edith Brower Sees Paris
(Wilkes-Barre Times - July 23, 1897)
Pension Violette - 22 Rue Raynonard, Paris
It is a very old and worn saying that good Americans when they die go to Paris. All sensible Americans should make it their aim to go to Paris before they die. Dead or alive I ask for nothing better, so far as external surroundings are concerned, than the Pension Violette. There is a pension in one of the Balzac's novels, "Pere Gorlot", I think, which was a garden something like this one. Picture me please, in that part of Passy which was once the home and the rest of the ancient aristocracy; Passy, where the lovely Princesse Lamballe had her palace, where lived that ambitious printer's apprentice, who "would stand before kings", he would and consequently did, Benjamin Franklin. Near by is a building having a plaque let into the wall stating that on this site he dwelt and erected the first "paratonnerre" (lightning rod) ever put up in Paris.

I have not yet found in this gay, lovely, quaint city any street so pretty as Rue Raynouard. Starting from Rue Passy, only a block beyond the Tracadero, it winds its narrow length between high walls of villas and weird old houses opening immediately upon the sidewalk, then passes into the Rue de la Fontaine and so into the ancient village of Antenil. Fifteen minutes walk brings us to the opening of the Bois de Boulogne, ten minutes takes us down to the Seine (Passy is on high ground) whereon one may go any distance he chooses for two sons, at night the Eiffel Tower lights the entire neighborhood, so that candles seem superfluous, (in five days I have burned only half a candle). We are, it is true, quite far from the centre but in Paris, the greater the distance, the more fun.

But the Pension Violette! Come through this great green gate with the small grille between two lodges. The house stands nearly a hundred feet back in a green garden, the paths set up with hedges and edged with flowers, half a dozen different kinds of trees give delightful shade and various colorings. In Paris great attention is paid to the different hues of foliage. Under these trees one may take coffee, breakfast, or dinner, and somebody always chooses to do so. The house was a one-storied hunting lodge in the days before the Revolution, it is seven rooms wide, including entrance hall, and only one room deep. It is described as une maison entie cour de jardin, hence the pleasant dining saloon has windows that give upon both the garden and the court. Now three stories have been added in the original style, connected by an enchanting staircase of the delicate fashion of 76 or 100 years ago. The pension is kept by nice French people and we hear nothing but French spoken at the table. The "managing lady" can neither understand nor speak English. The butler, I don't recall his proper title, understands though he does not speak it. He is an excellent type of the old time serviteur who, never forgetting that he was a servant, took a friendly part in all that went on among his "betters". Our Jean shows intense interest in "Les Americaines" and in their unconcealed delight i the novelty of thing about them. No trains nor omnibuses pass this secluded way; once within our green gates the world's noises retreat. Twice a day a school in the rear has recess, then the neighborhood resounds joyously with children's voices. A little way down the street is a "caserne", and every morning we see over our wall the heads and shoulders of soldiers marching thither. They look very gay in their red uniforms these little youthful "millitaires", a dozen of whom would make a good meal for one British soldier. When I see so many bayoneted, helmeted men about, I ask myself, Is this a Republic? Yet after all they seem only toy infantry, toy cavalry, good enough to scare unreflecting people into behaving themselves.

The most impressive thing to me in all Paris is that great ruined building across the Seine where the Commune held its tribunals, and which had been let to stand ever since as a silent yet effective way of saying, see what may happen again! When I pointed to this ruin and asked, What is it? I was answered by a sh-sh and informed that "We do not mention that place aloud in Paris".

My informant, by the way, was none other than my old friend, Mr. Edward T. Potter, known already to your readers by the name of "Viator", signed to several very interesting Parisian letters. Mr. Potter is lingering here for a purpose which may some day if he can carry it out, result in great good to mankind. For twenty years he has been perfecting plans for, quoting his own words, "concentrated residence suited to all places and all conditions of men, which shall combine most economically as many as possible as the advantages from concentration and avoid as many as possible of its evils". As an architect and a humanitarian, he has worked with intelligence and sympathy. It having been suggested to him that he should endeavor to get for his plans the approval of some of the Savans over here, he visited the other day the secretary of the French society of Hygiene at St. Cloud, whither I was fortunate enough to accompany him. We went down the Seine in a boat and landing at St. Cloud strolled delightfully along the lovely Rue President Carnot by the River, until we came to No, 46 just opposite the superb property of the Rothchilds. Ringing at a very high gate we were admitted by the concierge into a beautiful garden, the greenest and most finished place I have ever seen. The house, a simple French villa, painted white, stood even farther back from the entrance than does our own dear Pension Violette. Mr. Potter insisted on sending in my card with his, for he said "It will seem like a committee then". So I consented to help make a committee in so good a cause and was immediately shown into a salon where sat Mons le Docieur de Santa Petra. The salon was commodious and pretty, after the French style of prettiness, but Mons de Secretaire was small and dirty and queer looking. He received us graciously, however apologized at great length for his condition to "Mademoiselle" (Mlle is convinced in her own mind that he never looked different), made us take chairs and then began a charming play, I being spectator, Mr. Potter is very grand appearing with suave manners of the simple American sort, Mons de Secretaire the very picture of un Savant Francais was also suave and complacent, but his fluent speech was so punctuated with shrugs and gesticulations that he resembled more than anything else a very intelligent and animated monkey. The interview over, ending in his sending Mr. Porter with an introductory note to the president of the Society of Hygiene, he offered Mademoiselle a cigarette. She declined but accepted some bon bons which she likes no better than cigarettes. Then the old gentleman presented each one of the "committee" with a copy of the Journal of Hygiene edited by himself. Then he said Mlle. must have a rose. So he armed himself with a flower cutter and led us into the garden behind. It was many times larger than that which lay on the front and more beautiful than I can tell you. Here I was obliged to eat currants until my host, not I, was satisfied (Mlle. does not affect currants), also enormous red gooseberries such as we do not use in America, methinks. When I said so, Dr. Pietra Santa remarked that he would show us one thing we raise in America, and conducted us with a grim smile to a row of currant bushes tainted by disease. "you send us that", he said, and I felt much ashamed of our bad manners, especially when I was being so well treated. Observing a fine bed of lettuce (romaine) I expressed my admiration. "Mlle. would like some?" I thought I was to pick it and eat it on the spot but no. The gardner must come and cut a whole head and do it up in paper for me to carry home which I did do, of course. That evening on the table of Pension Violette was decorated with a vase of the Secretary's lettuce stuck around with the Secretary's roses.

I want to tell you something more about Mr. Potter and a problem of his which is perhaps more important than his plans of Concentrated Residence, but this is a very long letter and I must keep what I wish to say for another time.

For accounts of the Louvre, Luxembourg, Notre Dame, Etc., see a Paris Guide Book. You will learn therein more than I can tell you. As for my impressions, they are incommunicable, and not of general interest.
Edith Brower
July 7, 1897


Miss Brower in Switzerland
(Wilkes-Barre Times - August 13, 1897)
Zurich, July 24, 1897
Nothing is easier than to go to Geneva for two or three days and stay there a week. Perhaps, though, to stay a month would be still easier. As to staying for a year, why falling on a log would be a feat in comparison. Geneva is like a little Paris with the added advantages of a marvelously lovely situation and surroundings. The charming accents of the French tongue on every hand, the gaiety of the cheerful looking streets, the fascinating panorama and pictures otherwise known as shop-windows, the occasional girls in bloomers and knickerbockers without the pretense of a "bicyclette" to justify them (nothing so shocking is to be seen in Zunich), these and many other things pleasantly deceive the tourist whose heart obstinately refuses to dislodge from the big, beautiful, jolly city on the Seine.

Did anybody I wonder write a paper "On The Advantage of Being Poor?" Here is one, at any rate if you are rich and travel, you put up at big hotels, see what everybody else may see, and do what most other people do. If you are poor, i. e., not rich, you go to pensions, and not very dear ones at that, where your hostess generally sits at table with you, also does her husband if she has one, and her daughter, son, or sister, when there are poor pensionnaires like yours and are more interesting than the rich because they're usually less conventional ...

In all of our travels so far we have met but one American woman from Chicago. She entered our Paris Eden, the Villa Violette, but she did not make the fruit of that seem any fairer to us. The first time we met she asked me if I were going to Switzerland and if she might "go along".

Mr. Editor, there's no using hiding it, I told her a lie. May heaven forgive me, bur I should never have forgiven myself if I hadn't. She knew it wasn't the truth, one needs more practice in lying than I have to do it successfully, but she did not appear to lay it up against me. I think she felt she could have done it better.

We had two pension experiences in Geneva. The first was with Mlle. ___, I won't tell her name, not wishing to injure her. She did not give us scones for bread, but she did give us common syrup for honey with our breakfast of coffee and rolls. Also, she charged us for candles, though it was not so nominated in the bond. This quotation reminds me that in my last letter I attributed to Cervantes what belongs to Shakespeare. Shakespeare will not suffer by it, though I may have. We had one candle, the longest I have ever seen except on an altar. It must have cost a great deal of money, such a stately candle as that. We burned out an inch of it for which 35 centimes were charged. But we paid the price magnificently like American lords to whom money is no consideration. Madame knew we did not like her house though nothing was said on the subject. When we told her we were going to the country she looked both wise and sad. The "country" was Champel, a beautiful rural environ of Geneva Champel, the guise of an Egyptian Sheikh. One fair morning we were led through a quaint hilly part of the city where every step and turn shoed us more and more attractive streets, narrow, winding lanes, though paved, they were walled on either side or easily hedged, the walls vine covered, the hedges now and then giving glimpses of delightful green gardens and friendly looking French villas.

Some distance ahead, swinging along the descending road, was a wonderful figure in which were combined the elasticity forwith with the majesty of age. It was clad in a long floating robe of sage color under which were occasional glimpses of a whitish green garment. On the noble tossing head sat a red fez twisted around with a small white turban. We followed that fez and turban, but the long easy strides soon outstripped us and the interesting picture vanished. Presently we turned into a greener, prettier lane than all the rest. It seemed like a "blind alley" though it proved not to be, another little street joining it at the end. Where the two met was a place hedged with the close set trees. Over the gate bearing the sign "les Cytises" (The Laburnum), a house could be faintly seen. A little further on, a natural gap in the hedge showed the side of the house by the flower garden where in the sun a table was set out. An extraordinary pretty girl wearing a scarlet apron edged with white lace stood beside the table. and sitting near by, his legs crossed with superb grace, his green gown thrown back, sat our Sheikh! We didn't know him for a sheikh then, nor guess the brave man standing before him and talking to be Emim Pasha, nephew or cousin or something to the great Emin. But the whole thing proved irresistible, Madame' s place down in the town was not satisfactory. This was. In less than ten minutes arrangements were made for rooms at Les Cytises, where the price for board and lodging including everything even to candles with a big garden under whose hoard shade trees the dinner and supper table was always set, thrown in, not to mention the Sheikh, cost no more than the somewhat bare, though clean and comfortable town pension. Moreover, when we made a trip to the Grand Saleve, which took the entire day, those dear generous hosts actually offered to put up a lunch for us, and a generous one it was.

Les Cytises surely deserves all the free advertisement that it can get am very glad am I to give it. If only there were room and time I could draw you a nice picture of Mons and Madame and pretty Babette, who always spoke English as well as French and German and the red apron even over her best gowns. and tell you more about the Sheikh, who must have a good sized trunk to carry his own fine gowns and of his beautiful countenance and absolute entrancing eyes, etc., etc., etc. We did not see much of him, but our host told us about him. One day I saw by chance a letter addressed to "Son Eminence Sheikh Mohammed Abdul". It looked none too grand for that oriental gentleman. He is a professor in Cairo of the Mahonmetan religion, and holds also some government office. He has but one wife and has written a book showing it is very wicked, even for Mohometans, to have more than one. Was it not worth going to Les Cytises just to see a Mahometan? The young Pasha disappeared the day we went there, but he couldn't hold a candle to the old Sheikh.

Society was somewhat variegated at Les Cytises. Beside the Egyptian, there was a fearful and wonderful Russian woman; two fearful but not wonderful German women (Geneva is at present full of Germans attending French language lectures at the university); two other German women, neither fearful nor wonderful, one of whom explained to me elaborately that she would like to speak English with me, for she spoke it well, but she dared not allow herself the liberty of saying or hearing one word that was not French; and two blonde, harmless youth whom I took to be German-Swiss. Professional introductions are the rule at Mme Fischer's and the whole rule there appears to make the guests feel not as guests, who pay a stipend for so much food, bed and candle, but as members of a family who are yet entirely independent of each other.

It may be I shall send you another Geneva letter. It is much easier to write about a place sometime after one has left it, then one gets some perspective.
Edith Brower


Miss Brower in Switzerland
(Wilkes-Barre Times - August 27, 1897)
Zurich, August 6, 1897
Once I heard of a party that went to Chamounix to see Mount Blanc. Arriving at their inn one of the number before entering crossed the road beckoning for the others to follow. They all rushed over, looked up, and for one divine instant Mont Blanc looked down. Then he went into retirement and although they stayed at his foot one mortal week they never saw him again. It' s a way this Monarch of Mountains" has, a way that has little to commend it, save that we are suppose to value things in portion to their rareness. I am glad to report a better fortune than that of those tourists just mentioned. After five discouraging lowering days in Geneva the weather came off very clear. On that afternoon rattling along in a train on the way to Bois de la Pace to see the blue Rhone and the grey Arve flow amicably side by side in the same channel and suddenly one exclaimed "Look". There, rising out of the notch between Grand and Petit Salive was a huge luminous mass - of what? Was it mere color or was it substance? The sharp outlines bespoke substance, yet of what unearthly hue? White? No. Rose? No. Gold? No. all of these combined rather and thrown out in soft distinctness against a light blue sky.

That was Mont Blanc. Next day came the ascent of Grand Salive, an electric train, if you please. , if all the poetry has gone out of mountain ascents for us fin de siecle mortals, all the mortals tiredness has gone too, we now arrive at the turnable to enjoy something. Some to be sure, go up on donkeys. There's poetry for you. and not even the donkeys are tired, though they always look so.

Grand Saline, as you know, is a pile of rock 4,500 feet above the sea and full 3,300 feet above Lake Leman. It rises mound-like between two great valleys or seemingly in the midst of one vast valley extend from the Mont Blanc chain to the Jura range. If you are expecting a description of that view, Mr. Editor, I advise you to season your expectation for no such description will be forthcoming.

Those who have stood on Grand Salive and seen that range of snow-tipped Alps on the one hand and that broad valley of the Rhone sweeping up into the Jura on the other, know all about it; those who have not seen it cannot be made to see by any words of mine - it would be sheer waste of time and paper were I to endeavor to show it to them. But inasmuch as high mountain peaks are the most uncertain, coy creatures known, women not excepted, it is a fact worth mentioning that on two consecutive days, and in summer, too, Mont Blanc went completely unveiled. I cannot quite believe that he is simply made of rock and covered with snow. One thinks of him, after seeing him at a distance, as a spirit dwelling in light inaccessible. On his top lies a face the face of a sublime man asleep. No one ever told me about this face. I wonder if it is always there. If it is not I may never look upon the real Mont Blanc again for now. I can always see him in my mind's eye with that face.

It is a great mistake to climb the highest mountains, save for scientific purposes, the best views are not to be had from them, lower points more often afford these, besides after once scaling them they must lose for you the best part of their charm, a certain sense of unreality, that is, of unmateriality. Yesterday I saw another great view more extended than the one just mentioned, that from the Albis range near Zurich. Again the atmospheric conditions were favorable, clear enough to see everything in bold distinctness as one sees things in California, for clouds, if not too low and heavy, form half the beauty of any landscape. In the foreground was Lake Zug, up from it rose the Rigi, then came things indescribable. I'm going to ascend the Rigi, but almost regret it in advance. It will never look as dreamy as it did yesterday, it will only be a rocky hill.

To return to Geneva. The most interesting persons we encounter there, saving His Eminence the Sheikh, were two German ladies who have a school in Austria which they are proposing to transfer to Geneva on account of the advantages of the latter city in learning French. The manager and proprietor of this establishment, Fraulein Dressler, a youngish woman, has actually made a fortune out of it in five years. English, American, German, French even Hungarian girls come to her school which, with such a partner and assistant as her friend, Fraulein Schultz, must, I should think, offer exceptional educational opportunities. These two ladies searched Geneva and its environs from top to bottom for a suitable house and when almost in despair (nothing being big enough to suit their very large ideas), found a beautiful property at Cologne on the lake about fifteen minutes sail from the city, and reached by train in even less time. Thither we went with them one day to examine the "chateau" and because it is not often that ordinary tourists get a chance to see the inside of such fine private places I am going to tell you a little about it. I have another reason also. It is that although these ladies did not ask me to do so, I am very glad in return for their most friendly treatment, to thus aid in making known their new enterprise. I do believe though that their success is already secured. They bring with them twenty pupils for a beginning in the new quarters and the quarters in themselves should attract to say nothing of the two delightful "frauleins" who represent the school.

There was a long steep walk ahead of us when we landed at Cologny (in going by train this climb is avoided) but it was pleasant enough leading us as it did through narrow, high-walled lanes, past vineyards and gardens, and giving at each turn, a fairer view of the lake and its opposite shores. Perhaps Cologny is a village. I'm not sure of it. If it is, surely so tiny a village never was. I recall one crooked street , hesitating to call it a street, which ends almost as soon as it begins. Half a dozen close houses stand plumb upon a winding, paved, lane above, on the higher slopes, are glimpses of several "fine" places, and this is Cologny. The finest of these place Fraulein Dressler has taken for her school. It occupies three terraces on the hillside. On the first is a kitchen garden and a small vineyard, on the second stands what was formerly an inn, with a well-shaded grass plot in front. The "Biergarten" on the second floor, a large long room open on the side towards Geneva, is to be converted to a dancing hall for the girls. On the third and largest terrace is the chateau, the gatekeeper's house large enough to accommodate many extra pupils, the house-garden, greenhouses and a magnificent grape bordered lawn. The view from the courtyard terrace between the conciergerie and the chateau, is of itself worth the price of the whole place. Lake Leman, Geneva and back of them the lofty Jura range, not too great a bit of scenery to live with every day. One must climb the hill behind to see the Alps but the Alps are not best for "human nature's daily food".

The house is built on a superb scale as to size, and is superbly finished throughout with wool carpets, paneled ceilings, carved fire places, etc. The man who built it must have had a wife, and that wife must have had a hand in the planning, for there are closets by the score, and large ones, too. Fraulein Dressler displayed every one of these, not concealing the glee which every well-ordered woman feels at sight or thought of "closet of room". Man might enjoy a similar glee in contemplation of his pockets. If only he knew how well off he is. But he doesn't know. He just has those pockets, he has always had them, but he doesn't half value them. A man with no pockets, a woman with no closets, one symbol might stand for both!

I am keeping you a long while at Chateau Cologny, but we stayed there much longer. In fact, we stayed all day taking lunch delightfully under a linden tree on the courtyard terrace, and gladly missing an intended trip to Ferney, Voltaire. But one pleasure at a time, I say, and get all you can out of that. That kind French concierge brought us fresh butter and cheese and such mulberries from the tree on the inn terrace as you never saw or tasted, while an exquisite little Armenian girl only four years old played about us who had seen horrors unfit for man or woman to see, her father having been murdered by the Turks and her mother taken captive by them. She, with an older sister, were rescued and brought away by some society and this little one had been adopted by the good French woman. Dressed in pink and scarlet, with her rich brown skin and flashing black eyes, "with eyelashes a yard long", as they used to say of Hawthorne, she made a bright spot in that bright day's experience.

The girls who go to Chateau Cologny will have a good time f it. I am sure, besides getting a very thorough education. They can go to Geneva for the theatre, the opera and concerts, they can ride their wheels around the lake on roads like a floor and they will have one of the charmingest homes ever permitted to human mortals.

Next letter shall contain some Zurich gossip.
Edith Brower



Letter from Miss Brower
(Wilkes-Barre Times - September 3, 1897)
Zurich, August 17, 1897
"On the margin of fair Zurich's waters" it is a very pleasant sojourn for a while. Fair Zurich waters are green with the greenness of the sea; green under a grey sky, never blue save in narrow streaks left by the wake of a boat. There are myriads of fish in these green waters, and it would appear that no tradition of destruction are extant among them, for, leaning over the Qual Brucke, just where the lake pours its steam into the river, one may see these happy creatures by the millions quietly gathered there as if to watch the doings of the human beings who are eternally passing over their heads.

Human beings are thick in Zurich, for it is a large town, the largest in Switzerland and possibly one of the most ancient in Middle Europe. Its mediaeval character is strongly marked in the oldest parts and in one case, at least, it can boast of prehistoric remains, the curious judgment seat resembling a table which stands in the Lindenhap Park on the site of the earliest fortifications.

It is somewhat surprising that so interesting a place as this German-Swiss city should receive as little attention from tourists as it does. Almost everybody must pass through it traveling north, south, east or west, but few stop over and those few for a day or two at most. Its superb educational advantages brings students from all parts yet there are few resident foreign families. Of American families, there are three only and those three include the consul's family. Of the remaining two, one is "more English than American" , so says the consul with unconcealed disdain. He has a slow time of it, I think, on the whole. I bother him all I can by way of making him feel busy but my best efforts are insignificant for such a purpose. He is exceedingly obliging and has learned all it is necessary to know in an official way during his four years' residence here. Why on earth he should be removed in order to allow an unpracticed man to take his place is beyond the power of my unpolitical feminine brain to imagine.

In this vicinity did we meet the first indications of a national; costume which I am told in its complete form is now nearly extinct, a tremendous pity for many reasons but particularly on account of the hideous unpicturesqueness of modern "civilized" dress both for men and women. The common people one ordinarily sees in the streets of Zurich are common to ugliness, but let a clumping fellow come past wearing a green felt hat adorned with a sprig of flowers, or a feather, or feathers and flowers together and the man's very awkwardness takes on an attractive character. So with his wife, or sister who is no beauty at best who can make a real picture of herself in her queer sleeved bodice with its white chemisette, silver brooches and long chains dangling on the hips. The short skirts, even if worn at home, is abandoned in coming to town as a concession to "advanced civilization", which one grieves to observe.

Apropos of costume, did I not tell you that bloomers were unknown in Zurich? I wrote in haste, the very next day I saw a bloomer girl. She is a spectacle for gods and men. Her wheel is white, her bloomers are white, so is her blouse, so are her shoes and her "spats", so is her sailor hat. All Zurich turns when she goes by. But then all Zurich turns to look at any woman on a wheel. This sight, so common with us, is still new and rare here, rare enough, indeed, to attract the attention of even Americans. Yet the admirable roads mostly level by the lake side, and the extreme beauty of the scenery would make these parts a paradise for cyclers. Despite the up-to-dateness (pardon the word) of Zurich's educational institutions, socially she seems to be sealed up in conservatism. One need not quarrel with her on this account, may her peculiar and delightful flavor of antiquated nations and customs be long in vanquishing!

Nothing on this side of the Atlantic has given me so strong an impression of the leisureliness and seriousness of life among these old peoples as something I saw in connection with house building. In the United States where houses are all the time going up by the score not to say hundreds, where people mostly build in order to sell or rent, where a man rarely dies in the house he was born in, where his children are often moved about until they can hardly point out their childhood home, in such a land such a custom as that I am going to speak of would seem mere child a play and would be in truth little short of an affectation. But here a house is generally a home, and the man who builds it has good reason for hoping that some of his sons or daughters will inhabit it after him and hand it down in turn to their offspring. So the erection of it came to be at once a joyous and a semi-religious act that must have its appropriate celebration. Formerly, I doubt not, the owner himself shared in the feast. In these later times, the workmen only engage in it. When the highest point of the building is reached, the highest beam of the roof laid, an evergreen of the Christmas tree order is erected upon the summit, decorated with ribbons or flags, and a banquet is held over the fortunate event , the viands usually consisting nowadays of beer, bread and cheese. I saw a very tall apartment house lately surmounted by a large, gaily trimmed tree. It was an amusing sight to me but a very pleasing one besides. Another building custom is one I should like to see introduced into our own country. Any one proposing to build on a certain site, is obliged to put up on the land, poles showing the height the different parts of the building will reach. These poles must be allowed to stand for two months and if during that time anybody in the neighborhood discovers that the new structure is going to overshadow him to his disadvantage either in the matter of light, air or on any other account, he may protest and require that the plans be changed. This strikes me as far better than permitting the house to go up and then raising a rumpus and demanding damages.

I have also observed an admirable sanitary provision whereby people are protected from the danger of drinking bad water. Zurich, like all the towns I have so far seen in this country, is well provided with public drinking fountains. It has also in the outskirts, recently taken into city limits , many wells. These are carefully tested and, if impure, are branded in the name of the sanitary society as "unbrauchbar als trinklvasser", "not water for drinking purposes". One day, being in that condition which makes the shipwrecked swallow sea water, I tempted Providence and drank from one of these branded wells. The woman of the house was very angry when I pointed to the sign, and asked if she drank that water. She uttered a lot of dialect on the subject which I could not comprehend, though I gathered from it all that the water was "good" and the sign and sanitary committee were "no good". They say everyone must eat his peck of dirt, so must he swallow his gallon of microbes. The times had taught me to believe that I long since must have swallowed my gallon. Surely one who has lived through the dangers of the Huntsville reservoir and the Susquehanna river may risk something in Zurich. Three weeks have passed and I am alive to tell the tale. But I won't drink unbrauchbares wasser again, when I know it.

I hear that you are having superfluous rain in Wilkes-Barre. We are having superfluous cloud here. The clouds are growing to be a serious matter for me for we haven't yet made the ascent of the Rigi to see the sun rise. It appears to be thought the only proper thing to do, but the sun has no ideas of propriety in such regards, and generally prefers to get up in the privacy of his own cloud apartment. Oh, for one or two California days! Is it not the very irony of fate that a country which depends so largely upon views for its attractiveness as a tourist ground should so rarely have any views? Like some people it lives largely upon his reputation. But let me not do Switzerland an injustice. Without its views (distant ones) it has quite enough charms to bring the whole world together within its borders.
Edith Brower