We, who own and follow our general, know that she goes where Liberty leads, where Justice calls, where Love whispers his divine commands; and we have found in her the gravity of your stately mountains, the yearning for freedom of your lofty hills lifted toward the sky spaces. We have found in her the impetuosity of your mountain streams, which, fretting against narrow bounds, broke through them, widening and widening ever the channel of the life of American womanhood; and so we, who love appropriateness, gaze with delight upon this scenery, the environment of her infancy and the nurturing influence of her childhood, as a fine illustration of the eternal fitness of things.
One of the most exquisite addresses of the day was made by Mrs. Clara B. Colby, who said in part:
Miss Anthony's love of justice links her with the divine. This has been her impelling motive, and her patient endurance has been the secret of her success. No matter how keen might have been her sense of the injustice done to women, no matter how courageously she might have set out to right the wrong, had she lacked endurance, she had never been the one to lead us to victory. As justice is the root of the tree of character, and patience the stalk from which all growth proceeds, so tenderness is the outflowering of the divinity within. By her tenderness Miss Anthony has made herself loved where she might have only been honored.
It was perhaps the drop hardest to swallow from the cup of bitterness which was ever pressed to the lips of the early woman suffragists, that they were destroyers of the home. To Miss Anthony, the home and kindred-lover—homeless only for the sake of the homes of the mother-half of the race—this must have been especially hard to bear. There are such all over the land where she has been a tender and sympathetic friend and where she is enshrined in the hearts of the homekeepers.... Thus Miss Anthony, justice-loving, patient and tender, has erected for herself a lasting monument in the hearts of the women of this nation. May the time be long deferred when she shall pass from the leadership of her now triumphant host, but when that day comes, let there be, as she has enjoined upon us, no tears, but only glad thankfulness for a great life-work wrought in courage, fidelity and tenderness.
Mrs. Colby urged the Historical Society to purchase the old homestead, if possible, as a depository not only for relics of the Anthony family but for mementoes of suffrage work and workers. No report ever can give an adequate idea of the eloquence of Anna Shaw, so artistically diversified by delicious bits of humor and keen points of satire. A portion of her address was as follows:
Amidst all the eulogy which has surrounded Miss Anthony this afternoon, her brother said to me, "Don't you think they will turn Susan's head?" I answered, "No, she has had so many years of misrepresentation and abuse that if they keep on eulogizing her as long as she lives, it won't balance the other side." There is no danger in this world that the leader of an unpopular cause ever will die of overpraise, for, in America as in Jerusalem, the prophets of God have always been received with stones. We who know her best love her most, and to me the truest and deepest love of my existence, since my mother entered the life beyond, is that which I cherish for Susan B. Anthony.
The remonstrants today tell us that our movement will destroy the affectionate tenderness of the womanly nature and unsex woman until she becomes a weak man. I believe in men, and I do not believe that all the love, the tenderness, the power to sacrifice is feminine. I believe that the love of man is as true and deep and tender as the love of woman. I will not accept the theory that "man is the head" and "woman is the heart." I believe that when God created head and heart for the human race He divided them equally and gave man his part and woman hers, and both have kept their own all the way down the centuries.
The part of Miss Anthony's life which is dearest to us is that into which she has admitted the few who belong to the sacred inner circle, who have seen her toil, her suffering, her soul's anguish and travail for the freedom, the larger growth, the diviner possibilities of womanhood; and if there is any evidence that living in the world, working for its uplift, does not destroy this trait in human character, it is shown in the life of Miss Anthony. There is no human being whom I have ever known who had more tenderness for the erring and greater willingness to overlook the frailties of human life. In this she shows that contact with the most disagreeable side of the reformer's work, makes the real woman not less but more womanly. I believe that if the principles which she advocates, the ideals for which she stands, were embodied in all womankind, we would have a motherhood diviner than any this world has ever known, a motherhood such as God had in his thought when he created woman to be the mother of the race....
It is not a name we love today, it is not a person we revere, but a great, an ideal life of a woman who has battled with the world, who has been misunderstood, who has borne its scorn, who has been ostracised, and who, in the midst of all, has kept her life sweet, her heart young, her love tender; and when the best thing shall be said of her which men and women can say, it will be—she was true, she was noble, she was woman.
The day after the meeting of the Historical Society, occurred the Anthony Reunion at the old homestead, when eighty of the clan sat down at the long tables spread in grandfather's room, the keeping-room and the weaving-room; and what a dinner the famous cooks of the Anthony-Lapham-Read-Richardson families had prepared for this great occasion! Not the least important features were the eighteen apple-pies eaten with the world-renowned Berkshire cheese; and then the sweet bread and butter, the fried chicken, the baked beans, the rich preserves and cream, the delicious cake—but why attempt to describe a New England dinner prepared by New England women? Those who have eaten know what it is; those who have not, can not be made to understand.
Where Susan B. Anthony sat was the head of the table; at her right hand, the brother Daniel R.; at her left, the brother Merritt; and close by, the quiet, smiling sister Mary; and then all along down the line, the cousins, the nephews, the nieces, three and four generations, who had joined so heartily with her for the success of this rare occasion. Before the dinner began, Miss Anthony asked that, in accordance with the custom of their ancestors, there might be a moment of silent thanks; and at the close of the meal, when the chatter and mirth were stilled, she arose and in touching words paid tribute to the loved and gone who once blessed these rooms by their presence. She then called upon the representatives of the different branches, old and young, who, in prose or poetry, with wit or pathos, made delightful response.
THE QUAKER MEETING HOUSE, ADAMS, MASS.
150 Years Old. Several Members of the Anthony Family in the Group of Pioneers.
After all had finished they adjourned to the dooryard and a reception commenced which even the roomy old house could not have accommodated. For several hours a long line of carriages wound up the hill—the people of Adams and vicinity coming to pay respect to their illustrious townswoman and her relatives and friends. The immediate members of the family were photographed in a group on the old porch, as was also the dinner party gathered in the historic dooryard. The mountain air was sweet and invigorating, and the view in every direction most enchanting. A more picturesque spot scarcely can be imagined: in front, the long range of Berkshire hills, a spur of the Green mountains of Vermont whose faint outlines are visible in the distance; at the back, glorious "Old Greylock," the highest peak in the State; at the right, the steep, winding road leading down to the village a mile below, through a ravine perfectly bewildering in its beauty of overhanging trees, moss-grown rocks and fern-bordered brook tumbling over the massive boulders in its rapid descent to join the Hoosac; and then united they flow through the pretty town of Adams, turning the countless wheels of the great mills and factories.