"What an experience Miss Anthony has had! None but a remarkable woman could have accepted such a life-work at a time when prejudice and education ran all in the opposite direction. Finely-balanced and self-educated as to her special cause, she has not only won a name and fame world-wide, but turned perceptibly the entire current of human conviction. And she has been, through it all, the modest woman, truly womanly. The men and women of this country—of the world—who believe that the ballot for woman means better government and the elevation of society to a higher plane, must ever recognize Susan B. Anthony as the real pioneer prophetess of the cause, for so will history record her."
[115] Miss Anthony was many times besought to tell the secret of her wonderful vitality and power for work, and on one occasion wrote the following:
"As machinery in motion lasts longer than when lying idle, so a body and soul in active exercise escape the corroding rust of physical and mental laziness, which prematurely cuts off the life of so many women. I believe I am able to endure the strain of daily travelling and lecturing at over threescore years and ten, mainly because I have always worked and loved work. As to my habits of life, it has been impossible for me to have fixed rules for eating, resting, sleeping, etc. The only advice I could give a young person on this point would be: 'Live as simply as you can. Eat what you find agrees with your constitution—when you can get it; sleep whenever you are sleepy, and think as little of these details as possible.'"
[116] Among others was a beautiful testimonial from Theodore Tilton, who had been for many years a resident of Paris, in which he said:
"At the present day, every woman who seeks the legal custody of her children, or the legal control of her property; every woman who finds the doors of a college or a university opening to her; every woman who administers a post-office or a public library; every woman who enters upon a career of medicine, law or theology; every woman who teaches a school, or tills a farm, or keeps a shop; every one who drives a horse, rides a bicycle, skates at a rink, swims at a summer resort, plays golf or tennis in a public park, or even snaps a kodak; every such woman, I say, owes her liberty largely to yourself and to your earliest and bravest co-workers in the cause of woman's emancipation. So I send my greetings not to you alone, but also to the small remainder now living of your original bevy of noble assistants, among whom—first, last and always—has been and still continues to be your fit mate, chief counselor and executive right hand, Susan B. Anthony; a heroine of hard work who, when her own eightieth birthday shall roll round, will likewise deserve a national ovation, at which she should not inappropriately receive the old Roman crown of oak."
This was accompanied by a personal letter to Miss Anthony, saying, besides other pleasant things: "I heard lately that you were dying! I did not believe the canard. Dying? No! You are to live forever. Give my love to the heroine of the hour—and prepare yourself for an equal picnic when your own time shall come. Ever yours as of old."
[117] In a letter to the Woman's Tribune Mrs. Jean Brooks Greenleaf said: "I was absent from the convention and could not vote against that resolution. The 'Woman's Bible' a hindrance to organization? Of course it is. What of it? The belief in the old theories about women, which had their basis in doctrines taught from King James' version of the Bible, was a much more monumental hindrance to the work of the pioneers, in not only the woman suffrage movement but in all movements for the advancement of women."