“Is it not always our duty to sacrifice ourselves for others?”
She knew very well that he was contemplating a perfectly reckless step and was trying to hoodwink her—and himself—into thinking the action noble, because it would be so disadvantageous to himself. The boy I fear forgot her answer; here it is for you to remember and lay to heart.
“We must always remember that we come into the world alone, that we go out of the world alone, that there is nothing to us but ourselves.”
Certain things, she held, we must sacrifice, selfish personal ends, comfort, pleasure, ease, but if we are to fight the good fight we must not make the fancied sacrifice of letting our arms rust while we lay them down to fight another’s battle—nine times out of ten an easier thing to do than to fight our own. She had met with so much opposition all her life through serving the unpopular causes of Abolition, Woman’s Suffrage, Religious Freedom, she had fought so grimly for what, when she entered the ranks, always seemed a Forlorn Hope, that she knew the real joy lies in the battle, not in the victory.
Her last public appearance in Boston was at a hearing in the State House, where she came to plead for the cause of pure milk. This was on the 23rd of May, 1910, four days before her ninety-first birthday. There had been a great deal about the Pure Milk Crusade in the newspapers, the Boston Journal had made a special question of it and one of the reporters had already interviewed her on the subject. The Chairman of the Massachusetts Milk Consumer’s Association had asked her to give her name as honorary president of the league. This she was glad to do, but this was not enough, she wanted to do more. I was called up once or twice on the ’phone and asked if I thought Mrs. Howe was able to speak before the legislative committee at one of the hearings. I thought that with the birthday festivities so near and the fatigue of moving down to Newport before her, this would be a little too much, and consequently “begged off.” In these days there was a meeting in Cambridge in memory of Margaret Fuller. She was invited to be present, and was determined to go.
“They have not asked me to speak,” she said more than once.
“Of course they will ask you when they see you,” I assured her.
“I have my poem on Margaret written for her Centenary,” she said.
“Take it with you,” I advised. “Of course you will be asked to say something, and then you will have your poem in your pocket and be all prepared.”
I was unable to go with her to the meeting, a young lady who came to read aloud to her going in my place. They came back late in the afternoon; the meeting had been long and I saw immediately that she was very tired. The cause of this soon appeared.