THE PASSING OF A GREAT WOMAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2663, 29 March 1905, Page 77

THE PASSING OF A GREAT WOMAN.

By Jessie Mackay.

(S-eo portrait in illustrated pages.) Ut

On March 9 Mrs Sievwright, of Gisborne, died at her home, Hyaltland, after about a fortnight's illness.

Though~for about 25 years Mr and Mrs William Sievwright have lived in Gisborne, their family name is yet a household word in Dunedin, and ' the actual details of the deceased lady's life must be far more familiar to the majority of Dunedin readers than to myself. But speaking as a lover of the cause of woman and of humanity I may be permitted to say a word about one of the noblest, bravest, gentlest personalities I have ever been privileged to know. It was at Christchurch in the April of 1896' that the first great representative meeting of women took place after the granting of the franchise had made it necessary to know something of civic duties. Among the many types of gracious, good, and gifted women who met there that sunny autumn morning one had a umque charm — a tall, very tall, and gracefully slender woman, already past middle age, but beautiful still. Something nun-like there was in her dress, something childlike in the soft voice and almost shymanner, something mother-like in the gentle absolutism which held the assembly whenever she rose to speak, something man-like in the perfect grasp of fact and theme, — and all these attributes, characteristically welded into loveliest -womanhood, were haloed with an aura of mystical unbroken peace. All through that week of public debate the charm. -of her personality grew and deepened on all privileged to meet her — deepened still more witJ" the mournful recognition that even then the long over-wrought frame was little more than a transparent shell from which the pure spirit must soon take flight. Not from her did we know what a part hers had been in the battle for the world's right before ever she touched this island shore of ours. Not from her did we know that Margaret Richardson had spent her early girlhood teaching the homeless little waifs of her native Edinburgh ; that her passion for saving humanity found wider scope when, trained under Floi-ence Nightingale, she next devoted herself to hospital -work, and that, lastly, she threw herself heart and soul into every struggle to uplift the outcasts and enlighten the ignorant of her own sex. When she came to New Zealand she nobly fulfilled duties of wifehood and motherhood ; her frail health and unconquerable dread of publicity were not suffered to stand between her and the wider duties of citizenship. She was a zealous temperance worker, and no less zealously did she labour for the franchise. She was an ardent advocate for every reform that, taken together, has mad© New Zealand a synonym for enlightened advancement. The very fire of the noble opal burned in her at any tale of wrong or any trifling with invested power that touched the safety of women and; children. By voice, pen, and example she never ceased to teach the sancity of life and the dignity of Humanity. I shall never forget the letters which I was privileged to receive from her on many occasions, revealing, as they did, her innate kindliness and simplicity of nature, as well as her intimate grasp of public affairs. Not always did Mrs Sievwright's views, based as they were on deep study, meet with popular applause; she had been

neither true student nor true reformer had such been the case. Time has already borne her out., for example, on the immediate consequences of the African war, which New Zealand now recognises with disgust as the closing of the door on Kaffir and poor white alike, and the introduction of yellow slavery into the land her sons died for. But. whether popular or not, whether on lasting themes or on affairs of the moment, these opinions, formed as they were on mature reflection, were never changed for fear of clamour or misconstruction, for a braver woman than she never drew breath.

Had personal ambition, fired her instead of the passion to uplift and save, the highest rewards of literature might have been hers, so free and fine was her touch, so logical and cultivated was her mind. Indeed, so magnetic a personality had scarcely failed to attain whatever earthly prize she had gi-eatly pressed to win. As it was, her meed, over and above the love of friends and family, was to leave a thousand noble impressions on the thought and action of her time. Gone ndw to a higher sphere she will ever live for us in the continued embodying in law and custom of those lofty ideals she left us.