When I received a telegram asking me to take part in Mrs. Pankhurst's funeral, I felt diffident, having endured nothing for the Suffrage Movement compared with those likely to be present. Dr. Cobb, in an eloquent address at the ceremony, pointed out how Mrs. Pankhurst, whom he eulogized in strong but unexaggerated terms, had foregone her war for the enfranchisement and the social liberty of woman in favour of the greater War, to which she and her troops nobly devoted themselves. Thus she acquired the object of her own campaign, which was more than conceded to the striking services they rendered, and the supreme fortitude they displayed.

As a public character Mrs. Pankhurst was strangely misunderstood, though, doubtless, her intimates grasped the fact not only of her gift of leadership and consummate patience, but of a certain tenderness and piety which were the marks of a saint, in its broadest meaning. Of the movement itself a more detailed account is, I understand, to be published by her daughter Christabel, who acted as her aide-de-camp throughout. Now that several years have passed, it is more possible to appraise one of the most remarkable personalities I have known, who left behind in my memory the thought of the gentlest of Spartans, and the opposite of what she was imagined to be by the world at large.

I want to speak, however, of a special trait through which I was attracted to Mrs. Pankhurst, though I have seldom heard it sufficiently appreciated. It was something far larger than the vote, or the collisions with the police which took place on behalf of Women's Rights. Mrs. Pankhurst embodied for me the word chastity, and became an inspiration through which the passionate side might be sanctified, without preaching, by the divine élan of public service. I can recall half a dozen times when I was carried off my feet by a figure combining both compassion and command, who, it is not saying too much, solved in her own person the vexed problem of the sex question. Why, or how eludes analysis, but anything maudlin was miraculously done away. The bare thought of uncleanness fled before this frail prophetess who seldom, if ever, referred to religion, but after hearing whom you felt you had been scorched by a flame. I reverently believe that she almost created a new type of woman, who ceased to think of man as the end-all of existence, but who heard a clarion call to use her gifts and attraction in a wholly different and higher cause. A great pathos for the woes of womanhood swept through the hall, and you left it with a vague yearning to find the Holy Grail, sensing a possible companionship without the smallest danger of soilure. For myself, at least, Mrs. Pankhurst spoke with the power of a seer, affecting me beyond truisms or tracts. Probably her silence on the point and the indirectness of her attack were more effective than unhealthy allusions to what might have defeated its own ends.

I knew nothing of her previous life, but I was certain that her own heart was concentrated on some human loyalty which made her sacrosanct to herself. This rendered her as immune as Joan of Arc, who led the armies of France and who, though brought into contact with the roughest and most turbulent of soldiery, eventually became canonized, since her fair name was never once tainted, despite the vilest treatment, which still makes us blush. Mrs. Pankhurst (and I am speaking purely of the woman herself) is bracketed in my mind with that heroine. Though, no doubt, this sublimated side of her character may have been unknown to the public who coupled her with such terms as “virago,” it is by this she will be chiefly remembered among the inner circle of her friends. Whether it was the goal she aimed at or not is not for me, an outsider, to say, but probably her daughter will speak with far greater right and in far greater detail. Josephine Butler and her like have themselves become immortalized on this most delicate and difficult of adventures.

The other point with which I was impressed in Mrs. Pankhurst was her extraordinary love for womankind. I can never forget the sympathy towards woman revealed by the sadness of her face, ever, besides, illuminated with the light of victory. Of that her followers felt assured, even in their darkest moment, because their leader never once quailed. Her indignation for her sisters throughout the world was by no means sentimental, and was combined with a touch of fine sternness which braced, without weakening, those who came under her spell. If she called forth the fighting quality in women, it was on no personal account, which she treated as unimportant compared with a certain idealism and the use of their combative instincts to bring it about. She had the unique art of uniting women by the entire eclipse of herself. She made the humblest of them feel their own value, without referring to the element of beauty or sensual attraction. I fancy there was a large element of the soldier about her, and a power of encouragement sadly lacking in those of the same sex towards one another. That is why, at her funeral—which I prefer to think of as a memorial service—there was a tocsin of triumph in the air, and a standing to attention, with gratitude for a genuinely great woman who had gone on. Her spirit will surely still strive for good, for such a nature could otherwise never be truly content.

I confess to wishing there were a few more Mrs. Pankhursts at the present moment to whom I might send young women in trouble, and who would probably never refer to yesterday, but give them something hard to do today. I regard Mrs. Pankhurst as the incarnation of the spirit which has brought about Girl Guides and other bodies in which religion and athletics are blended. Therein the appeal to the heroic is, in my humble opinion, productive of a finer breed than ultra-devotional and ecclesiastical efforts which run dangerously near the sensual, and which, though they may develop their quota of saints, are, on balance, largely conducive to emasculation and eroticism. Mrs. Pankhurst's attitude towards womankind tended to a contempt of the term “the weaker sex,” and was calculated to create a noble type of wife, walking on her own feet and asserting those moral and civic rights, the antithesis of a Turkish harem. It is for this cause that I rank her with Florence Nightingale; Agnes Weston; Matilda Wrede, the prisoners' friend in Finland; Mary Slessor, the Scottish lassie in Africa, and many others who have found careers worthy of their steel, and who have not regarded marriage and parentage as the summum bonum of existence compared to the lure of altruism.

It is the weakness of the Press that it is too often ignorant of the inner and deeper part of a personality. So it failed, to a large extent, to depict a great woman who, though exceptionally modest and retiring, became misrepresented through the publicity of her movement. Her silence for years after the victory was won had an eloquence all its own, but no one with any of the artist in him could do aught but regard her as a woman of others' sorrows and very much acquainted with their griefs. None but must be aware of a certain boldness and immodesty which are abroad. It is not within the scope of this article to trace their source, but I wish to disallow the smallest connection of such behaviour with this inspiring character, who would have been the very first to rebuke such decadence under the name of liberty, save that she was too genuinely humble to “preach a sermon.” I happen to have had the honour of knowing several women such as Mrs. Despard, Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, and “Lady Connie,” who actually gave her life for this emprise, all of whom have impressed me with the same admiration and respect which I have tried to express. After much meditation on the point and having to deal with an enormity of trouble due to the present non-morality which abounds, I am deeply thankful for this voice which nobly went out into the wilderness so long and will continue to speak with an eloquence of its own, though she has passed from this life.

It is by no means an easy task which I have faultily tried to fulfil in laying these flowers upon her grave, in strange contrast to the violence, anger, and rebellious things done, all of which are not only wiped out, but palliated in the eyes of those who have the wit to look beyond the letter into the spirit. In fine, she achieved a winsome holiness and self-eclipse which will always be woman's strongest power. It is by such that we men are eventually dominated vastly more than by what is termed individualism, or forcefulness, whereas it is women of her type who move men to undertake forlorn hopes, by becoming their staunch and strengthening comrades. Quite lately, before she passed, Mrs. Pankhurst joined the forces of law and order without, I trust, losing her wings, though where or how she learned the lesson of personal discipline I have no knowledge. Possibly private sorrow and pain had done their blessed work. My earnest prayer is that similar women may be raised up to guide the new liberties which have come to women in the political world, whether wisely or unwisely, in their suddenness it is not for me to say. I felt at that celebration of her Easter a mystical longing for a further loan of this exquisite soul, nor do I doubt that many a woman in high places, whether in politics, or on the stage, or young beginners in the finest of all services, that of rescue in any direction, must have echoed my desire. The three words which Mrs. Pankhurst has burned into my mind are Chastity, Courage, and Compassion, without the barest sense of caste or class, so that she will ever rank amongst the benefactors of her age, and hand down a school which she never strove to form, but which she formed by being herself. It will never die.