Eighty Years and More quotes

The Author, Mrs. Lawrence, and Robert Livingston Stanton

The psychical growth of a child is not influenced by days and years, but by the impressions passing events make on its mind.

What may prove a sudden awakening to one, giving an impulse in a certain direction that may last for years, may make no impression on another.

People wonder why the children of the same family differ so widely, though they have had the same domestic discipline, the same school and church teaching, and have grown up under the same influences and with the same environments.

As well wonder why lilies and lilacs in the same latitude are not all alike in color and equally fragrant.

Children differ as widely as these in the primal elements of their physical and psychical life.

The unhappiness of one child under a certain home discipline is not inconsistent with the content of another under this same discipline. One, yearning for broader freedom, is in a chronic condition of rebellion; the other, more easily satisfied, quietly accepts the situation.

Everything is seen from a different standpoint; everything takes its color from the mind of the beholder.

I am moved to recall what I can of my early days, what I thought and felt, that grown people may have a better understanding of children and do more for their happiness and development.

In defending themselves against injustice they are as helpless as dumb animals.

What is insignificant to their elders is often to them a source of great joy or sorrow.

With several generations of vigorous, enterprising ancestors behind me, I commenced the struggle of life under favorable circumstances on the 12th day of November, 1815, the same year that my father, Daniel Cady, a distinguished lawyer and judge in the State of New York, was …

I sympathized with the child and had it changed for the hue she liked.

Although we cannot always understand the ground for children's preferences, it is often well to heed them.

I am told that I was pensively looking out of the nursery window one day, when Mary Dunn, the Scotch nurse, who was something of a philosopher, and a stern Presbyterian, said: "Child, what are you thinking about;

… all dressed alike in bright red flannel, black alpaca aprons, and, around the neck, a starched ruffle that, through a lack of skill on the part of either the laundress or the nurse who sewed them in, proved a constant source of discomfort to us.

I have since seen full-grown men, under slighter provocation than we endured, jerk off a collar, tear it in two, and throw it to the winds, chased by the most soul-harrowing expletives.

But we were sternly rebuked for complaining, and if we ventured to introduce our little fingers between the delicate skin and the irritating linen, our hands were slapped and the ruffle readjusted a degree closer.

are you planning some new form of mischief?" "No, Mary," I replied, "I was wondering why it was that everything we like to do is a sin, and that everything we dislike is commanded by God or someone on earth.

I am so tired of that everlasting no! no! no!

At school, at home, everywhere it is no! Even at church all the commandments begin 'Thou shalt not.' I suppose God will say 'no' to all we like in the next world, just as you do here."

If we had observed them we might as well have been embalmed as mummies, for all the pleasure and freedom we should have had in our childhood.

As very little was then done for the amusement of children, happy were those who conscientiously took the liberty of amusing themselves.

One charming feature of our village was a stream of water, called the Cayadutta, which ran through the north end, in which it was our delight to walk on the broad slate stones when the water was low, in order to pick up pretty pebbles.

The thermometer in that latitude was often twenty degrees below zero, yet, bright and early, we would run downstairs in our bare feet over the cold floors to carry stockings, broom, etc., to the nursery.

The gorgeous presents that St. Nicholas now distributes show that he, too, has been growing up with the country.

The boys and girls of 1897 will laugh when they hear of the contents of our stockings in 1823.

Other pleasures were, roaming in the forests and sailing on the mill pond. One day, when there were no boys at hand and several girls were impatiently waiting for a sail on a raft, my sister and I volunteered to man the expedition.

We always acted on the assumption that what we had seen done, we could do.

Accordingly we all jumped on the raft, loosened it from its moorings, and away we went with the current.

All that day and far into the night I pondered the problem of boyhood.

I thought that the chief thing to be done in order to equal boys was to be learned and courageous.

So I decided to study Greek and learn to manage a horse. Having formed this conclusion I fell asleep. My resolutions, unlike many such made at night, did not vanish with the coming light. I arose early and hastened to put them into execution.

However, there are conditions in the child soul in which repression is impossible, when the mind takes in nothing but its own enjoyment, and when even the sense of hearing is lost in that of sight. The whole party awoke to that fact at last.

Children are not actors.

We never had experienced anything like this journey, and how could we help being surprised and delighted?

They would read passages from the British classics quite as aggravating as the laws. They delighted in extracts from Shakespeare, especially from "The Taming of the Shrew," an admirable satire in itself on the old common law of England.

I hated Petruchio as if he were a real man.

Young Bayard would recite with unction the famous reply of Milton's ideal woman to Adam: "God thy law, thou mine." The Bible, too, was brought into requisition. In fact it seemed to me that every book taught the "divinely ordained" headship of man;

I hated Petruchio as if he were a real man. Young Bayard would recite with unction the famous reply of Milton's ideal woman to Adam: "God thy law, thou mine." The Bible, too, was brought into requisition.

In fact it seemed to me that every book taught the "divinely ordained" headship of man; but my mind never yielded to this popular heresy.

Thus, with a delightful journey in the month of June, an entire change in my course of reading and the current of my thoughts, my mind was restored to its normal condition.

I view it as one of the greatest crimes to shadow the minds of the young with these gloomy superstitions; and with fears of the unknown and the unknowable to poison all their joy in life.

After the restraints of childhood at home and in school, what a period of irrepressible joy and freedom comes to us in girlhood with the first taste of liberty. Then is our individuality in a measure recognized and our feelings and opinions consulted;

To go out at pleasure, to walk, to ride, to drive, with no one to say us nay or question our right to liberty, this is indeed like a birth into a new world of happiness and freedom.

This is the period, too, when the emotions rule us, and we idealize everything in life; when love and hope make the present an ecstasy and the future bright with anticipation.

Then comes that dream of bliss that for weeks and months throws a halo of glory round the most ordinary characters in every-day life, holding the strongest and most common-sense young men and women in a thraldom from which few mortals escape.

The period when love, in soft silver tones, whispers his first words of adoration, painting our graces and virtues day by day in living colors in poetry and prose, stealthily punctuated ever and anon with a kiss or fond embrace.

What dignity it adds to a young girl's estimate of herself when some strong man makes her feel that in her hands rest his future peace and happiness!

Though these seasons of intoxication may come once to all, yet they are seldom repeated. How often in after life we long for one more such rapturous dream of bliss, one more season of supreme human love and passion!

He was of a metaphysical turn of mind, and in the pursuit of truth was in no way trammeled by popular superstitions.

He took nothing for granted and, like Socrates, went about asking questions.

Nothing pleased him more than to get a bevy of bright young girls about him and teach them how to think clearly and reason logically.

I confess that I did not study so much for a love of the truth or my own development, in these days, as to make those young men recognize my equality.

I soon noticed that, after losing a few games of chess, my opponent talked less of masculine superiority.

Sister Madge would occasionally rush to the defense with an emphatic "Fudge for these laws, all made by men! I'll never obey one of them.

How little strong men, with their logic, sophistry, and hypothetical examples, appreciate the violence they inflict on the tender sensibilities of a woman's heart, in trying to subjugate her to their will!

The love of protecting too often degenerates into downright tyranny.

Fortunately all these sombre pictures of a possible future were thrown into the background by the tender missives every post brought me, in which the brilliant word-painting of one of the most eloquent pens of this generation made the future for us both, as bright …

Accordingly she was elected manager of the occasion, and to each one was assigned the specialty in which she claimed to excel. Those who had no specialty were assistants to those who had. In this humble office—"assistant at large"—I labored throughout.

Cooking is a high art.

A wise Egyptian said, long ago: "The degree of taste and skill manifested by a nation in the preparation of food may be regarded as to a very considerable extent proportioned to its culture and refinement."

We are told, too, of the chief butler and chief baker as officers in the household of King Pharaoh. I would like to call the attention of my readers to the dignity of this profession, which some young women affect to despise.

The fact that angels eat, shows that we may be called upon in the next sphere to cook even for cherubim and seraphim.

How important, then, to cultivate one's gifts in that direction!

but, as we were to sail early in the coming week, that was impossible. That point settled, the next difficulty was to persuade him to leave out the word "obey" in the marriage ceremony.

As I obstinately refused to obey one with whom I supposed I was entering into an equal relation, that point, too, was conceded.

A few friends were invited to be present and, in a simple white evening dress, I was married.

Stanton and Mr. Birney belonged to the other branch, called political abolitionists.

To me there was no question so important as the emancipation of women from the dogmas of the past, political, religious, and social.

It struck me as very remarkable that abolitionists, who felt so keenly the wrongs of the slave, should be so oblivious to the equal wrongs of their own mothers, wives, and sisters, when, according to the common law, both classes occupied a similar legal status.

The clerical portion of the convention was most violent in its opposition.

The clergymen seemed to have God and his angels especially in their care and keeping, and were in agony lest the women should do or say something to shock the heavenly hosts.

Their all-sustaining conceit gave them abundant assurance that their movements must necessarily be all-pleasing to the celestials whose ears were open to the proceedings of the World's Convention.

She had not much faith in the sincerity of abolitionists who, while eloquently defending the natural rights of slaves, denied freedom of speech to one-half the people of their own race. Such was the consistency of an assemblage of philanthropists!

They would have been horrified at the idea of burning the flesh of the distinguished women present with red-hot irons, but the crucifixion of their pride and self-respect, the humiliation of the spirit, seemed to them a most trifling matter.

The action of this convention was the topic of discussion, in public and private, for a long time, and stung many women into new thought and action and gave rise to the movement for women's political equality both in England and the United States.

The interest great men took in him, when they awoke to his genius, came too late for his safety and encouragement. In a glass of whisky he found, at last, the rest and cheer he never knew when sober.

Poverty and ignorance are the parents of intemperance, and that vice will never be suppressed until the burdens of life are equally shared by all.

We saw Melrose by moonlight, spent several hours at Abbotsford, and lingered in the little sanctum sanctorum where Scott wrote his immortal works. It was so small that he could reach the bookshelves on every side.

We did not recover from the fatigue of that expedition in several days, and we made no more experiments of exploring strange places without guides.

We learned, too, that mountains are not so hospitable as they seem nor so gently undulating as they appear in the distance, and that guides serve other purposes besides extorting money from travelers.

If, under their guidance, we had gone up and down easily, we should always have thought we might as well have gone alone. So our experience gave us a good lesson in humility.

Everyone in the full enjoyment of all the blessings of life, in his normal condition, feels some individual responsibility for the poverty of others.

When the sympathies are not blunted by any false philosophy, one feels reproached by one's own abundance.

I once heard a young girl, about to take her summer outing, when asked by her grandmother if she had all the dresses she needed, reply, "Oh, yes!

The puzzling questions of theology and poverty that had occupied so much of my thoughts, now gave place to the practical one, "what to do with a baby."

Though motherhood is the most important of all the professions,—requiring more knowledge than any other department in human affairs,—yet there is not sufficient attention given to the preparation for this office.

If we buy a plant of a horticulturist we ask him many questions as to its needs, whether it thrives best in sunshine or in shade, whether it needs much or little water, what degrees of heat or cold;

As children cannot tell what ails them, and suffer from many things of which parents are ignorant, the crying of the child should arouse them to an intelligent examination.

To spank it for crying is to silence the watchman on the tower through fear, to give soothing syrup is to drug the watchman while the evils go on.

Parents may thereby insure eight hours' sleep at the time, but at the risk of greater trouble in the future with sick and dying children. Tom Moore tells us "the heart from love to one, grows bountiful to all."

I have known even artists to be indifferent to their personal appearance and their surroundings. Surely a mother and child, tastefully dressed, and a pretty home for a framework, is, as a picture, even more attractive than a domestic scene hung on the wall.

The love of the beautiful can be illustrated as well in life as on canvas.

There is such a struggle among women to become artists that I really wish some of their gifts could be illustrated in clean, orderly, beautiful homes.

As our beloved parents had received no warning of our coming, the whole household was aroused to dispose of us. But now in safe harbor, 'mid familiar scenes and pleasant memories, our slumbers were indeed refreshing.

How rapidly one throws off all care and anxiety under the parental roof, and how at sea one feels, no matter what the age may be, when the loved ones are gone forever and the home of childhood is but a dream of the past.

After a few days of rest I started, alone, for my new home, quite happy with the responsibility of repairing a house and putting all things in order.

The house we were to occupy had been closed for some years and needed many repairs, and the grounds, comprising five acres, were overgrown with weeds. My father gave me a check and said, with a smile, "

You believe in woman's capacity to do and dare; now go ahead and put your place in order.

" After a minute survey of the premises and due consultation with one or two sons of Adam, I set the carpenters, painters, paper-hangers, and gardeners at work, built a new kitchen and woodhouse, and in one month took possession.

Up to this time life had glided by with comparative ease, but now the real struggle was upon me. My duties were too numerous and varied, and none sufficiently exhilarating or intellectual to bring into play my higher faculties.

I suffered with mental hunger, which, like an empty stomach, is very depressing.

I had books, but no stimulating companionship.

My experience at the World's Anti-slavery Convention, all I had read of the legal status of women, and the oppression I saw everywhere, together swept across my soul, intensified now by many personal experiences.

It seemed as if all the elements had conspired to impel me to some onward step.

I could not see what to do or where to begin—my only thought was a public meeting for protest and discussion.

I confess that I felt somewhat chagrined in having what I considered my unanswerable arguments so summarily disposed of, and the serious impression I had made on the audience so speedily dissipated. The good man intended no disrespect, as he told me afterward.

He simply put the whole argument in a nutshell: "Let a woman do whatever she can."

With these new duties and interests, and a broader outlook on human life, my petty domestic annoyances gradually took a subordinate place.

The breakfast was eaten in silence, the women humbled with a sense of their helplessness, and the men gratified with a sense of their power.

These men would probably all have said "home is woman's sphere," though they took the liberty of regulating everything in her sphere.

The reports of the conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important part in the new movement—Susan B.

That this ideal will be realized may be inferred from the fact that exceptional women have, in all ages, been leaders in great projects of charity and reform, and that now many stand waiting only the sanction of their century, ready for wide altruistic labors.

The world has ever had its vestal virgins, its holy women, mothers of ideas rather than of men; its Marys, as well as its Marthas, who, rather than be busy housewives, preferred to sit at the feet of divine wisdom, and ponder the mysteries of the unknown.

All hail to Maria Mitchell, Harriet Hosmer, Charlotte Cushman, Alice and Phoebe Gary, Louisa Alcott, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, Frances Willard, and Clara Barton! All honor to the noble women who have devoted earnest lives to the intellectual and moral needs of mankind!

To-day Miss Anthony is an agnostic. As to the nature of the Godhead and of the life beyond her horizon she does not profess to know anything. Every energy of her soul is centered upon the needs of this world.

To her, work is worship.

She has not stood aside, shivering in the cold shadows of uncertainty, but has moved on with the whirling world, has done the good given her to do, and thus, in darkest hours, has been sustained by an unfaltering faith in the final perfection of …

They summarily kicked out the bars, and, sliding down on the lightning rod, betook themselves to the barn for liberty. The youngest boy, Gerrit, then only five years old, skinned his hands in the descent.

This is a fair sample of the quiet happiness I enjoyed in the first years of motherhood.

It was 'mid such exhilarating scenes that Miss Anthony and I wrote addresses for temperance, anti-slavery, educational, and woman's rights conventions. Here we forged resolutions, protests, appeals, petitions, agricultural reports, and constitutional arguments;

It is often said, by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my good angel, always pushing and goading me to work, and that but for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have.

On the other hand it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them.

Perhaps all this is, in a measure, true. With the cares of a large family I might, in time, like too many women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary labors.

an overwhelming majority rejecting the women with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought over and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, until the bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was thoroughly exposed.

Every right achieved, to enter a college, to study a profession, to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform measure was contended for inch by inch.

Many of those enjoying all these blessings now complacently say, "If these pioneers in reform had only pressed their measures more judiciously, in a more ladylike manner, in more choice language, with a more deferential attitude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so rudely."

Miss Anthony received her guests with her usual straightforward simplicity, and in a few earnest words expressed her thanks for the presents and praises showered upon her. The comments of the leading journals, next day, were highly complimentary, and as genial as amusing.

All dwelt on the fact that, at last, a woman had arisen brave enough to assert her right to grow old and openly declare that half a century had rolled over her head.

Of carefully prepared written speeches Miss Anthony has made few; but these, by the high praise they called forth, prove that she can—in spite of her own declaration to the contrary—put her sterling thoughts on paper concisely and effectively.

Where did you learn this lesson?" "I learned it here," I replied, "in your office, when a child, listening to the complaints women made to you.

They who have sympathy and imagination to make the sorrows of others their own can readily learn all the hard lessons of life from the experience of others.

" "Well, well!" he said, "you have made your points clear and strong; but I think I can find you even more cruel laws than those you have quoted."

"There always was, and there always will be a class of men so small that, if women were educated, there would be nobody left below them."

Poor human nature loves to have something to look down upon!

Here is a specimen of the way such editors talked at that time. The Albany Register, in an article on "Woman's Rights in the Legislature," dated March 7, 1854, says:

They thought us the most immodest women on the face of the earth.

Modesty and taste are questions of latitude and education; the more people know,—the more their ideas are expanded by travel, experience, and observation,—the less easily they are shocked.

The narrowness and bigotry of women are the result of their circumscribed sphere of thought and action.

"Before we part I must confess that I was fairly vanquished by you and the Judge, on my own principles" (for we had quoted some of his most radical utterances).

"You have the argument, but custom and prejudice are against you, and they are stronger than truth and logic."

There was one bright woman among the many in our Seneca Falls literary circle to whom I would give more than a passing notice—Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, who represented three novel phases of woman's life. She was assistant postmistress;

What incredible freedom I enjoyed for two years!

Like a captive set free from his ball and chain, I was always ready for a brisk walk through sleet and snow and rain, to climb a mountain, jump over a fence, work in the garden, and, in fact, for any necessary locomotion.

Bloomer is now a recognized word in the English language. Mrs.

Mrs. Miller was also encouraged by the intense feeling of her father on the question of woman's dress. To him the whole revolution in woman's position turned on her dress.

The long skirt was the symbol of her degradation.

The names of those who wore the bloomer costume, besides those already mentioned, were Paulina Wright Davis, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Mrs. William Burleigh, Celia Burleigh, Charlotte Beebe Wilbour, Helen Jarvis, Lydia Jenkins, Amelia Willard, Dr. Harriet N.

If you can summon tears at pleasure, a few would not be amiss; a gentle shower, not enough to make the nose and eyes red or to detract from your beauty.

Men cannot resist beauty and tears.

Never mar their effect with anything bordering on sobs and hysteria; such violent manifestations being neither refined nor artistic. A scene in which one person does the talking must be limited in time. No ordinary man can keep at white heat fifteen minutes;

No ordinary man can keep at white heat fifteen minutes; if his victim says nothing, he will soon exhaust himself. Remember every time you speak in the way of defense, you give him a new text on which to branch out again.

If silence is ever golden, it is when a husband is in a tantrum.

"

I am a thousand times obliged to you; you did just right and so did she, and she has been a happier woman ever since. She now gets what she needs, and frets no more, to me, about ten thousand little things.

How can a man know what implements are necessary for the work he never does?

Of all agencies for upsetting the equanimity of family life, none can surpass an old, broken-down kitchen stove!"

I was only surprised when I encountered it, and no number of experiences have, as yet, taught me to fear public opinion. What I said on divorce thirty-seven years ago seems quite in line with what many say now.

The trouble was not in what I said, but that I said it too soon, and before the people were ready to hear it.

It may be, however, that I helped them to get ready; who knows?

I had no thought of the persecution I was drawing down on myself for thus attacking so venerable an institution. I was always courageous in saying what I saw to be true, for the simple reason that I never dreamed of opposition.

What seemed to me to be right I thought must be equally plain to all other rational beings.

Hence I had no dread of denunciation. I was only surprised when I encountered it, and no number of experiences have, as yet, taught me to fear public opinion.

Letters and newspapers poured in upon me, asking all manner of absurd questions, until I often wept with vexation.

So many things, that I had neither thought nor said, were attributed to me that, at times, I really doubted my own identity.

However, in the progress of events the excitement died away, the earth seemed to turn on its axis as usual, women were given in marriage, children were born, fires burned as brightly as ever at the domestic altars, and family life, to all appearances, was …

"No, no; the enemy of marriage, of the State, of society is not liberal divorce laws, but the unhealthy atmosphere that exists in the home itself.

A legislative act cannot make a unit of a divided family.

"

Indeed, we may safely say that there is scarcely a loyal woman in the North who did not do something in aid of the cause; who did not contribute time, labor, and money to the comfort of our soldiers and the success of our arms.

The story of the War will never be fully written if the achievements of women are left untold.

They do not figure in the official reports; they are not gazetted for gallant deeds; the names of thousands are unknown beyond the neighborhood where they lived, or the hospitals where they loved to labor;

No mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of constitutional or military law, no mottoes of craft or policy are big enough to touch the great heart of a nation in the midst of revolution.

A grand idea—such as freedom or justice—is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm.

"At this hour, the best word and work of every man and woman are imperatively demanded. To man, by common consent, are assigned the forum, camp, and field.

In nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint, and making jellies the bravest and best may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all.

Work is worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul.

Woman is equally interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle spectators now.

But when the slaves were emancipated, and these women asked that they should be recognized in the reconstruction as citizens of the Republic, equal before the law, all these transcendent virtues vanished like dew before the morning sun.

And thus it ever is: so long as woman labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when she dares to demand rights and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal appearance, and character are subjects for ridicule and detraction.

Liberty, victorious over slavery on the battlefield, had now more powerful enemies to encounter at Washington. The slaves set free, the master conquered, the South desolate;

The Governor often complimented me on my courage, when I was fully aware of being tempest-tossed with anxiety.

I am naturally very timid, but, being silent under strong emotions of either pleasure or pain, I am credited with being courageous in the hour of danger.

For days, sometimes, we could find nothing at a public table that we could eat. Then passing through a little settlement we could buy dried herring, crackers, gum arabic, and slippery elm; the latter, we were told, was very nutritious.

Through the heroic energy and good management of the eldest daughter, the little patrimony, in time, was doubled, and the children well brought up and educated in the rudiments of learning, so that all became respectable members of society.

Her advice to all young people is, if you are comfortably established in the East, stay there.

There is no royal road to wealth and ease, even in the Western States!

Her advice to all young people is, if you are comfortably established in the East, stay there.

There is no royal road to wealth and ease, even in the Western States!

In spite of the discomforts we suffered in the Kansas campaign, I was glad of the experience. It gave me added self-respect to know that I could endure such hardships and fatigue with a great degree of cheerfulness.

but with a narrow policy, playing off one against the other, both were defeated.

A policy of injustice always bears its own legitimate fruit in failure.

However, women learned one important lesson—namely, that it is impossible for the best of men to understand women's feelings or the humiliation of their position.

Auber looked up to heaven, and, with a sweet smile, said, "Nothing but that Mozart should have been here to listen." Looking and listening, "Here," thought I, "is another jewel in the crown of womanhood, to radiate and glorify the lives of all."

I have such an intense pride of sex that the triumphs of woman in art, literature, oratory, science, or song rouse my enthusiasm as nothing else can.

Hungering, that day, for gifted women, I called on Alice and Phebe Cary and Mary Clemmer Ames, and together we gave the proud white male such a serving up as did our souls good and could not hurt him, intrenched, as he is, behind creeds, …

When all men go to their legitimate business of creating wealth, developing the resources of the country, and leave its mere exchange to the weaker sex, we shall not have so many superfluous women in the world with nothing to do.

It is evident the time has come to hunt man into his appropriate sphere.

Coming from Chicago, I met Governor Fairchild and Senator Williams of Wisconsin. It was delightful to find them thoroughly grounded in the faith of woman suffrage.

The fact that the La Crosse Democrat found a ready sale in all parts of the country showed that Mr. Pomeroy fairly reflected the popular taste.

While multitudes turned up the whites of their eyes and denounced him in public, they bought his paper and read it in private.

I left La Crosse in a steamer, just as the rising sun lighted the hilltops and gilded the Mississippi.

… the one and Robespierre's of the other, until, by comparison, my condition was tolerable, and the little meagerly furnished room, with its dull fire and dim lamp, seemed a paradise compared with years of exile from one's native land or the prison cell and guillotine.

How small our ordinary, petty trials seem in contrast with the mountains of sorrow that have been piled up on the great souls of the past!

Absorbed in communion with them twelve o'clock soon came, and with it the train.

Though the Mormon women, like all others, stoutly defend their own religion, yet they are no more satisfied than any other sect.

All women are dissatisfied with their position as inferiors, and their dissatisfaction increases in exact ratio with their intelligence and development.

After this convocation the doors of the Tabernacle were closed to our ministrations, as we thought they would be, but we had crowded an immense amount of science, philosophy, history, and general reflections into the five hours of such free talk as those women had …

The ordinary mind does not generalize nor see that the same principles of conduct will not do for all periods and latitudes.

When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayerbooks, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brain of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of "Thus saith the Lord."

That thoroughly democratic gathering in the Tabernacle impressed me more than any other Fourth of July celebration I ever attended. As most of the Mormon families keep no servants, mothers must take their children wherever they go—to churches, theatres, concerts, and military reviews—everywhere and anywhere.

So I fell behind, and, when the party had all gone forward, I dismounted, though my slender guide assured me there was no danger, he "had been up and down a thousand times."

But, as I had never been at all, his repeated experiences did not inspire me with courage.

I decided to walk. That, the guide said, was impossible. "Well," said I, by way of compromise, "I will walk as far as I can, and when I reach the impossible, I will try that ill-constructed beast.

The Bishop told me about the resolution to take the word "obey" from the marriage ceremony which he introduced, two years before, into the Methodist General Conference and carried with but little opposition. All praise to the Methodist Church!

When our girls are educated into a proper self-respect and laudable pride of sex, they will scout all these old barbarisms of the past that point in any way to the subject condition of women in either the State, the Church, or the home.

Until the other sects follow her example, I hope our girls will insist on having their conjugal knots all tied by Methodist bishops.

The priest unclasped his book and the knot was tied. The congratulations, feast, and all, went on as though there had been no break in the proceedings, but the lesson was remembered, and many a rebel made by that short pause.

I think all these reverend gentlemen who insist on the word "obey" in the marriage service should be removed for a clear violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which says there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude within the United States.

As I gave these experiences to Bishop Janes he laughed heartily, and asked me to repeat them to each newcomer. Our little debating society was the center of attraction. One gentleman asked me if our woman suffrage conventions were as entertaining. I told him yes;

I thanked her and read them before reaching London. It did me no harm and her much good in thinking that she might have planted a new idea in my mind.

Whatever is given to us freely, I think, in common politeness, we should accept graciously.

While I was enjoying once more the comforts of home, on the blue hills of Jersey, Miss Anthony was lighting the fires of liberty on the mountain tops of Oregon and Washington Territory.

While I deplore the necessity of war, yet I know in our Army many of the noblest types of manhood, whose acquaintance I prize most highly. I enjoy all games, too, from chess down to dominoes.

There is so much that is sad and stern in life that we need sometimes to lay down its burdens and indulge in innocent amusements.

Thus, you see, what is wise from my standpoint is unwise from yours. I am sorry that you repudiate all amusements, as they contribute to the health of body and soul.

You, no doubt, enjoy your own thoughts and the book you are reading, more than you would the conversation of those gentlemen and a game of whist.

We must regulate our conduct by our own highest ideal.

While I deplore the necessity of war, yet I know in our Army many of the noblest types of manhood, whose acquaintance I prize most highly. I enjoy all games, too, from chess down to dominoes.

I decided, when the opportune moment arrived, to give him an answer not soon to be forgotten; so I promptly replied to his question, as I slowly viewed him from head to foot, "

I have met few men, in my life, worth repeating eight times.

" The members burst into a roar of laughter, and one of them, clapping him on the shoulder, said: "There, sonny, you have read and spelled; you better go."

Leaving comfortable homes in the East, they endured all the hardships of pioneer life, suffered, with the men, the attacks of the Dakota Indians and the constant apprehension of savage raids, of prairie fires, and the devastating locusts.

Man's trials, his fears, his losses, all fell on woman with double force; yet history is silent concerning the part woman performed in the frontier life of the early settlers.

Men make no mention of her heroism and divine patience;

Hence they pressed their claims at every point, at the Fourth of July celebration in the exposition buildings, and in the Republican and Democratic nominating conventions; hoping to get a plank in the platforms of both the great political parties.

The Woman's Pavilion upon the centennial grounds was an afterthought, as theologians claim woman herself to have been.

The women of the country, after having contributed nearly one hundred thousand dollars to the centennial stock, found there had been no provision made for the separate exhibition of their work. The centennial board, of which Mrs.

When the majority of women are seemingly happy, it is natural to suppose that the discontent of the minority is the result of their unfortunate individual idiosyncrasies, and not of adverse influences in established conditions.

But the history of the world shows that the vast majority, in every generation, passively accept the conditions into which they are born, while those who demanded larger liberties are ever a small, ostracized minority, whose claims are ridiculed and ignored.

From our standpoint we would honor any Chinese woman who claimed the right to her feet and powers of locomotion; the Hindoo widows who refused to ascend the funeral pyre of their husbands;

This gives a very fair idea of the character of the arguments produced by our opponents, from the inauguration of the movement.

But, as there are no arguments in a republican government in favor of an aristocracy of sex, ridicule was really the only available weapon.

After declaring "that no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed," "that taxation without representation is tyranny," it is difficult to see on what basis one-half the people are disfranchised.

the usual matrimonial entanglements, with all their promises of celestial bliss intertwined with earthly doubts and fears; weddings, voyages to Europe, business ventures—in this whirl of plans and projects our heads, hearts, and hands were fully occupied.

Seven boys and girls dancing round the fireside, buoyant with all life's joys opening before them, are enough to keep the most apathetic parents on the watch-towers by day and anxious even in dreamland by night.

My spare time, if it can be said that I ever had any, was given during these days to social festivities. The inevitable dinners, teas, picnics, and dances with country neighbors, all came round in quick succession.

but the evergreens and the tall, prim cedars held their own, and, when covered with snow, their exquisite beauty brought tears to my eyes.

One need never be lonely mid beautiful trees.

My thoughts were with my absent children—Harriot in France, Theodore in Germany, Margaret with her husband and brother Gerrit, halfway across the continent, and Bob still in college.

I have no sympathy with the old idea that children owe parents a debt of gratitude for the simple fact of existence, generally conferred without thought and merely for their own pleasure.

How seldom we hear of any high or holy preparation for the office of parenthood!

Here, in the most momentous act of life, all is left to chance. Men and women, intelligent and prudent in all other directions, seem to exercise no forethought here, but hand down their individual and family idiosyncrasies in the most reckless mariner.

We began the second volume in June. In reading over the material concerning woman's work in the War, I felt how little our labors are appreciated. Who can sum up all the ills the women of a nation suffer from war?

They have all of the misery and none of the glory; nothing to mitigate their weary waiting and watching for the loved ones who will return no more.

In the spring of 1881, to vary the monotony of the work on the history, we decided to hold a series of conventions through the New England States. We began during the Anniversary week in Boston, and had several crowded, enthusiastic meetings in Tremont Temple.

"If the Alps, piled in cold and silence, be the emblem of despotism, we joyfully take the ever restless ocean for ours, only pure because never still.

To be as good as our fathers, we must be better.

They silenced their fears and subdued their prejudices, inaugurating free speech and equality with no precedent on the file. Let us rise to their level, crush appetite, and prohibit temptation if it rots great cities;

Among others there was Jane Lane assisting Charles II. to escape, and Alice Lisle concealing the fugitives after the battle of Sedgemoor. Six wives of Henry VIII. stood forth, a solemn pageant when one recalled their sad fate.

Alas! whether for good or ill, women must ever fill a large space in the tragedies of the world.

I passed a few pleasant hours in the house where Macaulay spent his last years.

Our Protestant clergy never hesitate to make the dogmas and superstitions of the Catholic Church seem as absurd as possible, and why should not those who imagine they have outgrown Protestant superstitions make them equally ridiculous?

Whatever is true can stand investigation and ridicule.

In the last of April, when the wildflowers were in their glory, Mrs. Mellen and her lovely daughter, Daisy, came down to our home at Basingstoke to enjoy its beauty. As Mrs.

"Well," said I, "if we who do see the absurdities of the old superstitions never unveil them to others, how is the world to make any progress in the theologies?

I am in the sunset of life, and I feel it to be my special mission to tell people what they are not prepared to hear, instead of echoing worn-out opinions.

" The result showed the wisdom of my speaking out of my own soul. To the surprise of Mrs.

No, no! the right of suffrage is no shadow, but a substantial entity that the citizen can seize and hold for his own protection and his country's welfare.

A direct power over one's own person and property, an individual opinion to be counted, on all questions of public interest, are better than indirect influence, be that ever so far reaching.

Though influence, like the pure white light, is all-pervading, yet it is ofttimes obscured with passing clouds and nights of darkness.

The members of the committee presented the same calm aspect as their predecessors, as if to say, "Be patient, dear sisters, eternity is before us; this is simply a question of time. What may not come in your day, future generations will surely possess."

It is always pleasant to know that our descendants are to enjoy life, liberty, and happiness; but, when one is gasping for one breath of freedom, this reflection is not satisfying.

Returning to my native hills, I found the Lenten season had fairly set in, which I always dreaded on account of the solemn, tolling bell, the Episcopal church being just opposite our residence.

After dwelling on the dreary existence of those not of Christian faith, he forthwith pictures his St. Teresa going through twenty years of doubts and fears about the salvation of her soul.

The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others.

In May, 1885, we left Johnstown and took possession of our house at Tenafly, New Jersey.

The eulogies in prose and verse were so hearty and numerous that the ridicule and criticism of forty years were buried so deep that I shall remember them no more.

There is no class who enjoy the praise of their fellow-men like those who have had only blame most of their lives.

The evening of the 12th we had a delightful reunion at the home of Dr. Clemence Lozier, where I gave my essay, after which Mrs. Lozier, Mrs.

Senator Hoar of Massachusetts favored the Grant monument, partly to cultivate the artistic tastes of our people. We might as well cultivate our tastes on useful dwellings as on useless monuments.

Surely sanitary homes and schoolhouses for the living would be more appropriate monuments to wise statesmen than the purest Parian shafts among the sepulchers of the dead.

The strikes and mobs and settled discontent of the masses warn us that, although we forget and neglect their interests and our duties, we do it at the peril of all.

but to take another cent from those who are hopelessly poor is a sin against suffering humanity." The young woman realized the situation and said: "I shall go no farther. I wish I could return every penny I have taken from the needy."

The most fitting monuments this nation can build are schoolhouses and homes for those who do the work of the world.

It is no answer to say that they are accustomed to rags and hunger. In this world of plenty every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the rudiments of education.

The most fitting monuments this nation can build are schoolhouses and homes for those who do the work of the world. It is no answer to say that they are accustomed to rags and hunger.

In this world of plenty every human being has a right to food, clothes, decent shelter, and the rudiments of education.

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" when one-tenth of the human family, booted and spurred, ride the masses to destruction. I detest the words "royalty" and "nobility," and all the ideas and institutions based on their recognition.

"It is evident that woman does not know enough to come in when it rains." "Bless me!" said the conductor, who knew me, "that woman knows as much as the Queen of England; too much to come in here by a hot stove."

How little we understand the comparative position of those whom we often criticise.

There I sat enjoying the bracing air, the pure fresh breezes, indifferent to the fate of an old cloak and hood that had crossed the Atlantic and been saturated with salt water many times, pitying the women inside breathing air laden with microbes that dozens …

I think it is because they are "so English." The only reason the English use them is because they are cheap. The tax on two wheels is one-half what it is on four, and in England all carriages are taxed.

Before we Americans adopt fashions because they are English, we had better find out the raison d'être for their existence.

We had a very pleasant, smooth voyage, unusually so for blustering February and March. As I dislike close staterooms, I remained in the ladies' saloon night and day, sleeping on a sofa. After a passage of eleven days we landed at Southampton, March 2, 1890.

The children would listen a few moments and then, one by one, slip out of the room. Longfellow's old gentleman, after many exciting scenes in his career, usually stretched himself on the lounge and feigned sleep.

But grandmothers are not allowed to shelter themselves with such devices; they are required to spin on until the bedtime really arrives.

On July 16, one of the hottest days of the season, Mrs. Jacob Bright and daughter, Herbert Burroughs, and Mrs. Parkhurst came down from London, and we sat out of doors, taking our luncheon under the trees and discussing theosophy.

I took the latter position. Many parents are not fit to have the control of children, hence the State should see that they are sheltered, fed, clothed, and educated.

It is far better for the State to make good citizens of its children in the beginning, than, in the end, to be compelled to care for them as criminals.

While in the north of England we spent a few days at Howard Castle, the summer residence of Lord and Lady Carlisle and their ten children. So large a family in high life is unusual.

"

Our chief delight was to break the rules, but we did not like to be caught at it.

As we were forbidden to talk with our neighbors in study hours, I frequently climbed on top of my bureau to talk through a pipe hole with a daughter of Judge Howell of Canandaigua.

It took all the teachers to restore order and quiet us down again for the night. No suspicion of any irregularities were ever attached to Harriet and myself.

Our standing for scholarship was good, hence we were supposed to reflect all the moralities.

"Though strangers, we have a bond of union in all these memories, of our bright companions, our good teachers, who took us through the pitfalls of logic, rhetoric, philosophy, and the sciences, and of the noble woman who founded the institution, and whose unselfish devotion …

but I know we shall carry with us some new inspiration for the work that still remains for us to do.

Though many of us are old in years, we may still be young in heart.

Women trained to concentrate all their thoughts on family life are apt to think—when their children are grown up, their loved ones gone, their servants trained to keep the domestic machinery in motion—that their work in life is done, that no one needs now their …

"

Or, perhaps, the pressing cares of family life ended, the woman may awake to some slumbering genius in herself for art, science, or literature, with which to gild the sunset of her life.

Longfellow's beautiful poem, 'Morituri Salutamus,' written for a similar occasion to this, is full of hope and promise for all of us. He says:

In the evening we played draughts and chess.

I am fond of all games, also of music and novels, hence the days fly swiftly by; I am never lonely, life is ever very sweet to me and full of interest.

The winter of 1893-94 was full of excitement, as the citizens of New York were to hold a Constitutional Convention. Dr.

I especially desired to have the opinions of women from all sects, but those belonging to the orthodox churches declined to join the committee or express their views.

Perhaps they feared their faith might be disturbed by the strong light of investigation.

Some half dozen members of the Revising Committee began with me to write "Comments on the Pentateuch."

These questions were asked with all seriousness. We had a symposium on these points in one of the daily papers. To me the answer to all these questions was simple—if woman could ride, it was evidently "God's intention" that she be permitted to do so.

As to what she should wear, she must decide what is best adapted to her comfort and convenience.

Those who prefer a spin of a few hours on a good road in the open air to a close church and a dull sermon, surely have the right to choose, whether with trees and flowers and singing birds to worship in "That temple not …

… and singing birds to worship in "That temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens," or within four walls to sleep during the intonation of that melancholy service that relegates us all, without distinction of sex or color, to the ranks of "miserable sinners."

Let each one do what seemeth right in her own eyes, provided she does not encroach on the rights of others.

In May, 1896, I again went to Geneva and found the bicycle craze had reached there, with all its most pronounced symptoms;

"To this invitation came responses, from the Old World and the New, expressing sympathy with the proposed celebration, which was intended to emphasize a great principle by showing the loftiness of character that had resulted from its embodiment in a unique personality.

The world naturally thinks of the personality before it thinks of the principle.

It has, at least, so much unconscious courtesy left as to honor a noble woman, even when failing to rightly apprehend a noble cause.

But it still requires courage to question the divine inspiration of the Hebrew Writings as to the position of woman.

Why should the myths, fables, and allegories of the Hebrews be held more sacred than those of the Assyrians and Egyptians, from whose literature most of them were derived?

Seeing that the religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences, I feel impelled to reiterate my demands for justice, liberty, and equality in the Church as well as in the State.