From the time that Mrs. Stanton had decided to return to America for the remainder of her days, Miss Anthony had hoped they might have a home together and finish their life-work of history and reminiscence. When she learned that her friend, with a widowed daughter and a bachelor son, contemplated taking a house in New York, she was greatly distressed, as she felt that this would be the end of all her plans. She wrote her immediately:
We have just returned from the Unitarian church where we listened to Mr. Gannett's rare dissertation on the religion of Lowell; but all the time there was an inner wail in my soul, that by your fastening yourself in New York City I couldn't help you carry out the dream of my life—which is that you should take all of your speeches and articles, carefully dissect them, and put your best utterances on each point into one essay or lecture; first deliver them in the Unitarian church on Sunday afternoon, and then publish in a nice volume, just as Phillips culled out his best. Your Reminiscences give only light and incidental bits of your life—all good but not the greatest of yourself. This is the first time since 1850 that I have anchored myself to any particular spot, and in doing it my constant thought was that you would come here, where are the documents necessary to our work, and stay for as long, at least, as we must be together to put your writings into systematic shape to go down to posterity. I have no writings to go down, so my ambition is not for myself, but it is for one by the side of whom I have wrought these forty years, and to get whose speeches before audiences and committees has been the delight of my life.
Well, I hope you will do and be as seemeth best unto yourself, still I can not help sending you this inner groan of my soul, lest you are not going to make it possible that the thing shall be done first which seems most important to me. Then, too, I have never ceased to hope that we would finish the History of Woman Suffrage, at least to the end of the life of the dear old National.
Mrs. Stanton's children would not consent to this plan, but she came to Rochester for a month's visit in September. It was desired by many friends that to the very satisfactory busts of Miss Anthony and Lucretia Mott, which had been made by Adelaide Johnson, should be added one of Mrs. Stanton, and all be placed in the Woman's Building at the World's Fair. To accomplish this Miss Anthony rented a large room in the adjoining house for a studio and invited the sculptor to her home for a number of weeks, until the sittings were finished.
During Mrs. Stanton's visit Miss Anthony entertained the Political Equality Club and a large company of guests, the evening being devoted to the subject of the admission of women to Rochester University. A number of the faculty, Congressmen Greenleaf and Baker, several ministers, the principal of the free academy—about 200 altogether were present and the discussion was very animated. Practically all of them believed in opening the doors and a letter of approval was read from David J. Hill, president of the university. The trustees were represented by Dr. E. M. Moore, who was in favor of admitting women but declared that it would be impossible unless an additional fund of $200,000 was provided beforehand. Miss Anthony insisted that the girls should first be admitted and then, when a necessity for more money was apparent, it would be much easier to raise it. In the course of his remarks Dr. Moore said it was more important to educate boys than girls because they were the breadwinners.
The Utica Sunday paper came out a few days later with a half-page cartoon representing the university campus; on the outside of the fence were Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton heading a long procession of girls, books in hand; standing guard over the fence, labeled "prejudice and old fogyism," was Dr. Moore pointing proudly to the "breadwinners," who consisted of two confused and struggling masses, one engaged in a "cane rush" and the other in a fight over a football. This little incident merely proved the oft-repeated assertion that these two women never were three days together without stirring up a controversy, in which the opposing forces invariably were worsted and public sentiment was moved up a notch in the direction of larger liberty for woman.
Together they visited the palatial home, at Auburn, of Eliza Wright Osborne, daughter of Martha C. Wright, where they were joined by Elizabeth Smith Miller, daughter of Gerrit Smith; and there were delightful hours of reminiscence and chat of mutual friends, past and present. The diary shows that Miss Anthony purchased a full set of books to join the Emerson and Browning classes this year, but there is no record of attendance save at one meeting. One entry says: "Dancing to the dentist's these days." Another tells of forgetting to go to a luncheon after the invitation had been accepted; and still another of inviting a number of friends to tea and forgetting all about it.
In November she went again to Auburn to the State convention, remaining four days. The Daily Advertiser said: "Miss Susan B. Anthony, the grand old woman of the equal rights cause, was then introduced and spoke at length upon the objects for which she had labored so faithfully all her life. Except for her gray hair and a few wrinkles, no one would suppose the speaker to be in her seventy-second year. The full, firm voice, the active manner and clear logic, all belonged to a young woman." At the close of the convention Mrs. Osborne gave a reception in her honor, attended by nearly one hundred ladies.
By invitation of the Unitarian minister, Rev. W. C. Gannett, Miss Anthony participated with himself and Rabbi Max Lansberg in Thanksgiving services at the Unitarian church. The topic was "The Unrest of the Times a Cause for Thankfulness," as indicated by "The Woman, the Social and the Religious Movements." Miss Anthony responded to the first in a concise address, considered under twelve heads and not occupying more than that number of minutes in delivery, beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson's declaration, "A wholesome discontent is the first step toward progress," and giving a resume of women's advancement during the past forty years, due chiefly to dissatisfaction with their lot.
It had not been an easy matter for Miss Anthony to have even this fragment of a year at home. From many places she had received letters begging her to come to the assistance of societies and conventions, and she was just as anxious to go as they were to have her. The most urgent of these appeals came from Mrs. Johns, of Kansas, where a constitutional convention was threatened and the women wanted a suffrage amendment. When Miss Anthony did not go to the spring convention, Mrs. Johns wrote, April 18: "I can never tell you how I missed you, and the people—they seemed to think they must have you. Letter after letter came asking, 'Is there no way by which we can get Miss Anthony?'" When she declined to go to the fall convention, Mrs. Johns wrote, November 26: "I declare it seemed as if I did not know how to go on without you, and our women felt just as I did. We have had you with us so often that we depended on your presence more than we knew." In another long letter she said: