Her grief over the untimely death of Susie B. was still fresh, and in a letter to a friend who had just suffered a great bereavement, she said: "It is a part of the inevitable and the living can not do otherwise than submit, however rebellious they may feel; but we will clutch after the loved ones in spite of all faith and all philosophy. By and by, when one gets far enough away from the hurt of breaking the branch from its tree, there does, there must, come a sweet presence of the spirit of the loved and gone that soothes the ache of the earlier days. That every one has to suffer from the loss of loving and loved ones, does not make our anguish any the less."
To the sorrowing father she wrote after she returned home: "Can you not feel when you look at those lonely mounds, that the spirits, the part of them that made life, are not there but in your own home, in your own heart, ever present? It surely is more blessed to have loved and lost than never to have loved.... Which of us shall follow them first we can not tell, but if it should be I, lay my body away without the heartbreak, the agony that must come when the young go. Try to believe that all is well, that however misunderstood or misunderstanding, all there is clear to the enlarged vision. Whenever I have suffered from the memory of hasty or unkind words to those who have gone, my one comfort always has been in the feeling that their spirits still live and are so much finer that they understand and forgive."
Miss Anthony went from Leavenworth to Indianapolis for a few days' conference with Mrs. Sewall on matters connected with the National Suffrage Association and National Council of Women. She writes in her diary: "Mrs. Sewall introduced me to the girls of her Classical School as one who had dared live up to her highest dream. I did not say a word for fear it might not be the right one." From here she journeyed to Philadelphia, stopping, she says, "with dear Adeline Thomson, whose door is always open to those who are working for women;"[48] thence to New York for the State convention April 26.
The preceding evening a reception was tendered Miss Anthony at the Park Hotel, where she notes, "I wore my garnet velvet and point lace." This did not suit the correspondent of the Chicago Herald, who said: "Her futile efforts to adjust her train with the toe of her number seven boot, instead of the approved backward sweep of heel, demonstrated that she certainly was not 'to the manner born.'" He then continued to sneer at the suffrage women for "adopting the social elegancies of life inaugurated by Mrs. Ashton Dilke, at the council last winter;" evidently unaware that Miss Anthony had been wearing her velvet gown since 1883. But the same day the New York Sun had a long and serious editorial to the effect that "equal suffrage never would be successful until it was made fashionable." This illustrates how hard it is to please everybody, and also how prone men are to make a woman's work inseparable from her garments, always giving more prominence to what she wears than to what she says and does, and then censuring her because she "gives so much time and thought to her clothes." Even from far-off Memphis the Avalanche tumbled down on Miss Anthony for wearing point lace "when the women who wore their lives out making it were no better than slaves." Doubtless the editor abjured linen shirt-bosoms because the poor Irishwomen who bleach the flax are paid starvation wages. The Brooklyn Times also jumped into the breach and, in a column editorial, attempted to prove that "the ballot for woman is as superfluous as a corset for a man." Thus does the male mind illustrate its superiority!
On May 17, Miss Anthony addressed the Woman's Political Equality Club of Rochester, in the Unitarian church, which was crowded to its capacity. She spoke in Warren, O., May 21, the guest of Hon. Ezra B. Taylor and his daughter, Mrs. Upton. The next day the two ladies went to the Ohio State Convention at Akron and were entertained at the palatial home of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Miller. A dinner was given to Miss Anthony, Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace and Rev. Anna Shaw by Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Schumacher.
A report went the rounds of the newspapers at this time saying that "Miss Anthony had renounced woman suffrage." It was started doubtless by some one who supposed her to be so narrow as to abandon a great principle because her brother had been defeated in a city where women had the suffrage. The Portland Oregonian having used this alleged renunciation as the basis for a leading editorial, the ladies of Tacoma, Wash., where women had been arbitrarily disfranchised by the supreme court, sent a telegram to Miss Anthony asking if the rumor were true. She telegraphed in reply: "Report false; am stronger than ever and bid Washington restore woman suffrage."
She went to Philadelphia to attend the wedding, June 21, of one of her family of nieces, who filled the place in her great heart which would have been given to her daughters, had she chosen marriage instead of the world's work for all womankind. When her sister Hannah had died years before, Miss Anthony had brought the little orphan, Helen Louise Mosher, to her own home, where she had remained until grown. For some time she had been a successful supervisor of kindergarten work in Philadelphia and today she was the happy bride of Alvan James, a prominent business man of that city.[49] Miss Anthony was pleased with the marriage and the young couple started on their wedding tour with her blessing.
In July a charming letter was received from Madame Maria Deraismes, president of the French Woman's Congress, conveying "the greetings of the women of France to the leader of women in America." On the Fourth Miss Anthony addressed a Grangers' picnic, at Lyons, held under the great trees in the dooryard of Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Bradley, who were her hosts. One hot week this month was spent with Dr. Sarah A. Dolley, a prominent physician of Rochester, in her summer home at Long Pond. Early in August, with her niece Maud, she took a very delightful trip through the lake and mountain regions of New York. After a visit at Saratoga they went up Mount McGregor, and Miss Anthony writes in her diary: "Here we saw the room where General Grant died, the invalid chair, the clothes he wore, medicine bottles, etc.—very repulsive. If the grand mementoes of his life's work were on exhibition it would be inspiring, but these ghastly reminders of his disease and death are too horrible."
They spent a few days at the Fort William Henry Hotel on beautiful Lake George, and she says: "Several of the colored waiters formerly at the Riggs House recognized me the moment I entered the dining-room, and one of them brought me a lovely bouquet." They sailed through Lake Champlain to Montreal, stopping at the Windsor, visiting the grand cathedrals and enjoying the glorious view from the summit of the Royal mountain. Then they journeyed to the Berkshire hills and enjoyed many visits with the numerous relatives scattered throughout that region. At Brooklyn they were the guests of the cousins Lucien and Ellen Hoxie Squier.
Early in July Miss Anthony had accepted an invitation to address the Seidl Club, who were to give a luncheon at Brighton Beach, the fashionable resort on Coney Island. The invitation had been extended through Mrs. Laura C. Holloway, one of the editorial staff of the Brooklyn Eagle and a valued friend of many years' standing, who wrote: "Not nearly all our members are suffragists, but all of them honor you as a great and noble representative of the sex. You can do more good by meeting this body of musical and literary women than by addressing a dozen out-and-out suffrage meetings. You will find many old friends to greet you, and a loving and proud welcome from yours devotedly." She addressed the club August 30, after an elegant luncheon served to 300 members and guests. She selected for her subject, "Woman's Need of Pecuniary Independence," and her remarks were received with much enthusiasm. "Broadbrim's" New York letter thus describes the occasion: