In May Miss Anthony went as usual to the Anti-Slavery Anniversary. In regard to this her father wrote: "Were I in your place I should like to attend these anniversaries. The women are soon to have their rights and should there be any slavery left in the world after they are liberated, it should be your business to help clear it out." Very few of those who were actively engaged in the effort to secure equal rights for women had the slightest conception of the half century and more of long and steady work before them. To their minds the demand seemed so evident, so just and so forcible, that prejudice and opposition must yield in a short time and the foundation principles of the government be established in fact as well as in theory.
From New York she went to her birthplace, Adams, Mass., and spoke in the Baptist church. Just as she began, to her amazement, her Quaker grandfather eighty-five years old came up the aisle and sat down on the pulpit steps. While he had been very anxious that she should speak and that her lecture should be well advertised she had not expected him to be present, as he was not in the habit of entering an orthodox church. She stopped at once, gave him her hand and assisted him to a seat in the pulpit, where he listened with deep interest. When she finished he said: "Well, Susan, that is a smart talk thee has given us tonight."
After Miss Anthony returned home, outraged nature asserted itself and at every moment the pain in her back was excruciating. She went to a doctor for the first time in her life and was given a fly-blister and some drugs to put in whiskey. The last two she threw away but applied the blister, which only increased her misery. She suffered terribly all summer but was busy every moment writing a new speech and sending out scores of letters for a second woman's rights convention which had been called to meet at Saratoga in August. Most of the replies were favorable. T.W. Higginson wrote: "With great pleasure will I come to Saratoga Springs on August 15 and 16. It is a capital idea to have a convention there, coax in some curious fashionables and perhaps make those who come to scoff, remain to pray." Lucretia Mott sent a letter full of good cheer. From Mrs. Stanton, overwhelmed with the cares of many little children, came this pathetic message: "I can not go. I have so many drawbacks to all my efforts for women that every step is one of warfare, but there is a good time coming and I am strong and happy in hope. I long to see you, dear Susan, and hear of your wanderings."
Paulina Wright Davis said, in discussing the convention; "I get almost discouraged with women. They will work for men, but a woman must ride in triumph over everything before they will give her a word of aid or cheer; they are ready enough to take advantage of every step gained, but not ready to help further steps. When will they be truer and nobler? Not in our day, but we must work on for future generations." Lucy Stone, enjoying her honeymoon at the Blackwell home near Cincinnati, wrote in a playful mood: "When, after reading your letter, I asked my husband if I might go to Saratoga, only think of it! He did not give me permission, but told me to ask Lucy Stone. I can't get him to govern me at all.... The Washington Union, noticing our marriage, said: 'We understand that Mr. Blackwell, who last fall assaulted a southern lady and stole her slave, has lately married Miss Lucy Stone. Justice, though sometimes tardy, never fails to overtake her victim.' They evidently think him well punished. With the old love and good will I am now and ever,
LUCY STONE (only)."
H Anthony
On the way to Saratoga Miss Anthony stopped at Utica for the State Teachers' Convention and was appointed to read a paper at the next annual meeting on "Educating the Sexes Together." This action showed considerable advance in sentiment during the two years since this same body at Rochester debated for half an hour whether a woman should be allowed to speak to a motion. She called the Woman's Rights Convention to order in Saratoga, August 15, 1855, and Martha C. Wright was made president. The brilliant array of speakers addressed cultured audiences gathered from all parts of the country at this fashionable resort. The newspapers were very complimentary; the Whig, however, declared, "The business of the convention was to advocate woman's right to do wrong." It was here that Mary L. Booth, afterwards for many years editor of Harper's Bazar, made her first public appearance, acting as secretary.
She decided to go for a while to the Worcester Hydropathic Institute conducted by her cousin, Dr. Seth Rogers, and she found here complete change and comparative rest, although occupying a great deal of her time in sending out tracts and petitions. Her account-books show the purchase of 600 one-cent stamps, each of which meant the addressing of an envelope with her own hand, and her letters to her father are full of directions for printing circulars, etc. She was, however, enabled to take some recreation, a thing almost unknown in her busy life. On September 18 she attended the Massachusetts Woman's Rights Convention, and wrote home:
I went into Boston with Lucy Stone and stopped at Francis Jackson's, where we found Antoinette Brown and Ellen Blackwell, a pleasant company in that most hospitable home. As this was my first visit to Boston, Mr. Jackson took us to see the sights; and then we dined with his daughter, Eliza J. Eddy, returning in the afternoon. In the evening, we attended a reception at Garrison's, where we met several of the literati, and were most heartily welcomed by Mrs. Garrison, a noble, self-sacrificing woman, loving and loved, surrounded with healthy, happy children in that model home. Mr. Garrison was omnipresent, now talking with and introducing guests, now soothing some child to sleep, and now, with his wife, looking after the refreshments. There we met Caroline H. Dall, Elizabeth Peabody, Mrs. McCready, the Shakespearian reader, Caroline M. Severance, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Charles F. Hovey, Wendell Phillips, Sarah Pugh and others. Having worshipped these distinguished people afar off, it was a great satisfaction to meet them face to face.
Saturday morning, with Mr. and Mrs. Garrison and Sarah Pugh, I visited Mount Auburn. What a magnificent resting-place! We could not find Margaret Fuller's monument, which I regretted. I spent Sunday with Charles Lenox Remond at Salem, and we drove to Lynn with his matchless steeds to hear Theodore Parker preach a sermon which filled our souls. We discussed its excellence at James Buffum's where we all dined. Monday Mr. Garrison escorted me to Charlestown; we stood on the very spot where Warren fell and mounted the interminable staircase to the top of Bunker Hill Monument. Then we called on Theodore Parker; found him up three nights of stairs in his library which covers that whole floor of his house; the room is lined with books to the very top—16,000 volumes—and there at a large table in the center of the apartment sat the great man himself. It really seemed audacious in me to be ushered into such a presence and on such a commonplace errand as to ask him to come to Rochester to speak in a course of lectures I am planning, but he received me with such kindness and simplicity that the awe I felt on entering was soon dissipated. I then called on Wendell Phillips in his sanctum for the same purpose. I have invited Ralph Waldo Emerson by letter and all three have promised to come. In the evening with Mr. Jackson's son James, Ellen Blackwell and I went to see Hamlet. In spite of my Quaker training, I find I enjoy all these worldly amusements intensely.
Returning to Worcester, I attended the Anti-Slavery Bazaar. I suppose there were many beautiful things exhibited, but I was so absorbed in the conversation of Mr. Higginson, Samuel May, Jr., Sarah Earle, cousin Seth Rogers and Stephen and Abby Foster, that I really forgot to take a survey of the tables. The next day Charles F. Hovey drove with me out to the home of the Fosters where we had a pleasant call.[20]