LXXIII

Upon every line of Clara Barton’s life may be hung a thrilling story of perilous adventure and pathetic moving incidents.

“Clara Barton and Her Work.”

Like everything in Corsica, my education was pitiful.

Napoleon.

Greatness is nothing, if it is not lasting.Napoleon.

Impossible! That word is not in the French dictionary.

Napoleon.

Drama is the tragedy of women.Napoleon.

I have fought like a lion for the Republic and, by way of recompense, it grants me permission to die of hunger.Napoleon.

Fortune is a woman. The more she does for us the more we expect.Napoleon.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.Shakespeare.

The wicked flee when no man pursueth.Psalms.

The thief doth fear each bush an officer.Shakespeare.

Little sea-girt Corsica is weird, wild, soft and bewitching, strange, unique, but she had so much that one wearied of.

Clara Barton.

At Ajaccio, on the Island of Corsica, there is still carefully preserved the house where was bornNapoleon, in 1769. The island (a French Colony) is 114 miles long and 52 miles wide, and contains about 300,000 inhabitants; Ajaccio, the capital, about 19,000 inhabitants. Many of the street names, and statues of the city likewise, perpetuate the memory of the great military chieftain, as do other spots of similar historic interest in connection with his boyhood.

At Ajaccio, Clara Barton lived for some time. There she not only visited every place of interest but she also studied the character, and military strategy, of that masterful leader of men, as later she studied him in the city made by him “Paris Beautiful.”

For a time, until she regained her health, she livedincognito; later, she produced a letter from our U. S. Minister Washburn, then at the Court of Paris. When her identity became known she was overwhelmed with attentions from the natives, as well as from Americans, and attended many receptions given in her honor by that most hospitable people. Her experiences there were so numerous and sensational as worthy to become the basis for a great novel.

From the back door of her hotel a path led out into a forest of wildness and rare beauty. Describing the wood, by way of comparison, Clara Barton said: “The wood of Cuba is beautiful in quality, but hard to burn; in Corsica, one may take the green, wet wood and make a blazing fire.” By the side of the house were terraces on which were orange trees, loaded with the golden fruit. A little strategy secured what oranges Miss Barton wanted. She would take her blue bandana, put a franc in it, tie the ends of the bandana with a stone mason’s cord, then let it down from her room on the fourth story of the hotel to a little girl livingin a rude hut. The back of the hut was against a precipitous stone cliff, the living quarters of the girl’s family being partly in the hut and partly in a chamber blasted out of the rock, as frequently occurs on the island. The girl would fill the bandana with fruit then, the signal given, Miss Barton would pull the fruit through the side window to her sick room.

All Americans in Europe are supposed to have money. Clara Barton there alone, unsuspecting and unguarded, was not protected against theft. A native bandit one evening sneaked into her room and demanded her money, or her life. With her usual presence of mind, and fearlessness in imminent danger, Clara Barton at the top of her voice cried out: “Now, boys, come on; I’ve got him!” Quicker than it takes to tell it, the bandit jumped through an open window in one corner of the room, and escaped into the forest.

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