testimony but one even louder and more earnest than ever before.... The Abolitionists, for once, seem to have come to an agreement with all the world that they are out of time and place, hence should hold their peace and spare their rebukes and anathemas. Our position to me seems most humiliating, simply that of the politicians, one of expediency not principle. I have not yet seen one good reason for the abandonment of all our meetings, and am more and more ashamed and sad that even the little Apostolic number have yielded to the world's motto—"the end justifies the means."
As the long, hard winter's work had left her very tired she gladly turned to that haven of refuge, the farm-home. The father, who was willing always to put the control of affairs into her capable hands, took this opportunity to make a long-desired trip to Kansas, going the first of May and returning in September. She assumed the entire management of the farm, put in the crops, watched over, harvested and sold them; assisted her mother with the housework and the family sewing and, by way of variety, pieced a silk quilt and wove twenty yards of rag carpet in the old loom. She found time, more-over, to go to the Progressive Friends' meeting at Junius and to attend the State Teachers' Convention at Watertown. She also managed a large anti-slavery Fourth of July meeting at Gregory's grove, near Rochester, securing a number of distinguished speakers. In writing her, relative to this meeting, Frederick Douglass said:
I rejoice not in the death of any one, yet I can not but feel that, in the death of Stephen A. Douglas, a most dangerous person has been removed. No man of his time has done more than he to intensify hatred of the negro and to demoralize northern sentiment. Since Henry Clay he has been the King of Compromise.
Yours for the freedom of man and of woman always,
Frederick Douglass
From her diary may be obtained an idea of the busy life which only allowed the briefest entries, but these show her restlessness and dissatisfaction:
Tried to interest myself in a sewing society; but little intelligence among them.... Attended Progressive Friends' meeting; too much namby-pamby-ism.... Went to colored church to hear Douglass. He seems without solid basis. Speaks only popular truths.... Quilted all day, but sewing seems to be no longer my calling.... I stained and varnished the library bookcase today, and superintended the plowing of the orchard.... The last load of hay is in the barn; all in capital order. Fitted out a fugitive slave for Canada with the help of Harriet Tubman.... The teachers' convention was small and dull. The woman's committee failed to report. I am mortified to death for them.... Washed every window in the house today. Put a quilted petticoat in the frame. Commenced Mrs. Browning's Portuguese Sonnets. Have just finished Casa Guidi Windows, a grand poem and so fitting to our terrible struggle.... I wish the government would move quickly, proclaim freedom to every slave and call on every able-bodied negro to enlist in the Union army. How not to do it seems the whole study at Washington. Good, stiff-backed Union Democrats would dare to move; they would have nothing to lose and all to gain for their party. The present incumbents have all to lose; hence dare not avow any policy, but only wait. To forever blot out slavery is the only possible compensation for this merciless war.
All through the chroniclings of the monotonous daily life is the cry: "The all-alone feeling will creep over me. It is such a fast after the feast of great presences to which I have been so long accustomed." During these days she reads Adam Bede, and thus writes Mrs. Stanton:
I finished Adam Bede yesterday noon. I can not throw off the palsied oppression of its finale to poor, poor Hetty—and Arthur almost equally commands my sympathy. He no more desired to wrong her or cause her one hour of sorrow than did Adam, but the impulse of his nature brooked no restraint. Should public sentiment tolerate such a consummation of love—or passion, if it were not love? (But I believe it was, only the impassable barrier of caste forbade its public avowal.) If such a birth could be left free from odium and scorn, contempt and pity from the world, it would be a thousand times more holy, more happy, than many of those in legal marriage. It will not do for me to read romances; they are too real to shake off. What is the irresistible power so terrifically pictured in both Hetty and Arthur, which led them on to the very ill they most would shun?
To crown the result I went to the colored church to hear Sallie Holley, but she did not come. Mrs. Coleman was in the pulpit and read a poem of Gerald Massey on Peace, spoke a few minutes and said she saw Miss Anthony present and hoped she'd occupy the time. Then rang round the house the appalling cry of "Miss Anthony." There was no escape, and I staggered up and stammered out a few words and sat down—dead, killed—thoroughly enraged that I had not spent the forenoon in making myself ready at least to read something, instead of poring over Adam Bede.
To this Mrs. Stanton replies: "You speak of the effect of Adam Bede on you. It moved me deeply, and The Mill on the Floss is another agony. Such books as these explain why the 'marriage question' is all-absorbing. O, Susan, are you ever coming to visit me again? It would be like a new life to spend a day with you. How I shudder when I think of our awful experience with those mobs last winter, and yet even now I long for action." Miss Anthony was equally restive in her own seclusion which, although by no means an idle one, had shut her from the great outside world that at this hour seemed to cry aloud for the best service of every man and woman. In January, 1862, she went to Mrs. Stanton's and together they prepared an address for the State Anti-Slavery Convention to be held at Albany, February 7 and 8, and here in the society of Garrison and Phillips, she received fresh inspiration. Soon after reaching home, at Phillips' request, she arranged a lecture for him in Rochester. After paying all expenses, she sent him a check—there is no record of its size—but he returned a portion, saying:
DEAR SUSAN: Thank you, but you are too generous. I can't take such an awful big lion's share, even to satisfy your modesty. Put the enclosed, with my thanks, into your own pocket, as a slight compensation for all your trouble. Remember and pay my successor not one cent more than you can afford.... I had to charter a locomotive all to myself to get back from Oswego in time for Rondout. Riding in the darkness with the engineer through the snow gave me time to think of the pleasant group and supper I missed the night before at the Hallowells. Kind regards to them. Tell Mrs. Hallowell her lunch tasted good about midnight, as I entered Syracuse.
Miss Anthony managed the usual series of lectures this winter. When she sent Mr. Tilton his check he returned this rollicking answer:
DEAR S.B.A.: I received your letter and its enclosure, which latter has already vanished like April snow, to pay the debts of the subscriber.... Our morning ride with our good friend Frederick gives me pleasure whenever I think of it. Those pictures of Mount Hope and the waterfall were better than any in the Academy of Design. As to yourself, I have had some talk with Rev. Oliver Johnson about your "sphere," and we both agree that you are defrauding some honest man of his just due. I recommend that you form an acquaintance, with a view to prospective results for life, with some well-settled, Old-School Presbyterian clergyman, and send me some of the cake.
Yours, ever yours,
Theodore Tilton.
In 1862, as the previous year, Miss Anthony was determined to hold a National Woman's Rights Convention in New York, but her efforts met with no favorable response and so, for the second time, she was obliged to give up the annual protest which seemed to her a sacred duty. She did not then acknowledge, nor has she ever admitted, that there is any question of more vital importance than that relating to the freedom of woman. Defeated here she decided to start out again in the anti-slavery lecture field, since, as she wrote her friend Lydia: "It is so easy to feel your power for public work slipping away if you allow yourself to remain too long snuggled in the Abrahamic bosom of home. It requires great will-force to resurrect one's soul." In her tour she visited Adams, accompanied by her loved niece, Ann Eliza McLean, and wrote back an amusing account of how she lectured the male relatives for requiring their women folks to use worn-out cook-stoves, broken kitchen utensils and all sorts of inconvenient things in the household. While there she went with a large party of relatives over the mountains to see the wonderful
