Miss Woodhull was a standin’ pretty near the door, a talkin’ with 3 wimmin as we went in. But she come forward immediatly and put out her hand. I took it in mine, and shook it a very little, mebby 3 or 4 times back and forth. But she must have felt by that cool, cautious shake, that I differed from her in her views, and had come to give her a real talkin’ to.
One of the wimmen she was a talkin’ to, had jest about as noble a lookin’ face as I ever see, with short white curls a fallin’ all round it. The beholder could see by the first glance onto that face, that she hadn’t spent all the immortal energies of her soul in makin’ clover leaf tattin’, or in cuttin’ calico up into little pieces, jest to sew ’em togather agin into blazin’ stars and sunflower bedquilts. It was the face of an earnest noble woman, who had asked God what He wanted her to do, and then hadn’t shirked out of doin’ it. Who had gripped holt of life’s plough, and hadn’t looked back because the furrows turned over pretty hard, and the stumps was thick.
She knew by experience that there was never any greensward so hard to break up, as old prejudices and customs; and no stumps so hard to get round as the ridicule and misconceptions of the world. What made her face look so calm then, when she was doin’ all this hard work? Because she knew she was makin’ a clearin’ right through the wilderness that in the future was goin’ to blossom like a rose. She was givin’ her life for others, and nobody ever did this since the days of Jesus, but what somethin’ of his peace is wrote doun on thier forwards. That is the way Elizabeth Cady Stanton looked to me, as Miss Woodhull introduced me and Betsey to her, and to the two other ladies with her.
One of the other wimmen I fell in love with at first sight, and I suppose I should have been jest so partial to her if she had been as humbly as one of the Hotentots in my old Olney’s Geography, and I’ll tell you why, because she was the sister of H. W. Beecher. As a general thing I don’t believe in settin’ folks up, because they happen to have smart relations. In the words of one of our sweetest and noblest writers, “Because a man is born in a stable it don’t make him a horse.” Not as a general thing, it don’t.
But not once in 100 years does Nature turn out such a man as H. W. B. It takes her longer than that to get her ingregiences and materials togather to make such a pure sweet nature, such a broad charity, and such a intellect as his’en. Why, if the question had been put to me before I was born, whether I would be born his sister, or the twin sister of the queen of England, I’d never give a second thought to Miss Victoria Albert, not but what I respect the Widder Albert deeply, I think she is a real nice woman. But I had ruther be his sister than to be the sister of 21 or 22 other kings. For he is a king not make by the layin’ on of earthly hands, he is God’s own annointed, and that is a royalty that can’t be upsot. So as I remarked I s’pose Isabella Beecher Hooker would have looked pretty good to me any way.
The other lady was smart and sensible lookin’, but she was some like me, she won’t never be hung for her beauty. This was Susan B. Anthony. Betsey Bobbet sot down on a chair pretty nigh the door, but I had considerable talk with Susan. The other two was awful long discussin’ some question with Miss Woodhull.
Susan said in the course of her remarks that “she had made the ‘Cause of Wimmen’s Rights,’ her husband, and was going to cleave to it till she died.”
I told her I was deeply interested in it, but I couldn’t marry myself to it, because before gettin’ acquainted with it, I had united myself to Josiah.
We had considerable reasonable and agreeable talk, such as would be expected from two such minds as mine and hern, and then the three ladies departed. And Miss Woodhull came up to me agin kinder friendly, and says she,