Out of the Francis Jackson fund Mr. Phillips sent Miss Anthony $1,500 for her extensive campaign. She engaged speakers to come into New York in different months, and July 13 opened the series with Antoinette Blackwell at Niagara Falls. From here they made the round of the watering places, Avon, Clifton, Trenton Falls, Sharon, Saratoga, Ballston Spa and Lake George, where persons of wealth and prominence were gathered from all parts of the Union. In some places they spoke in a grove to thousands of people; at others in hotel parlors, and everywhere met a friendly spirit and respectful treatment.
Miss Anthony did not forget to go to Poughkeepsie this summer, and stir up the teachers at their annual meeting. Antoinette Blackwell says of this trip: "I shall always recollect our journey on the boat with two or three dozen teachers, and your walking the deck with one and another, talking about women and their rights, in school and out of school, in the most matter-of-fact way, although it was plainly evident that most of them would sooner have listened to a discussion on the rights of the Hottentots." The teacher who was her chief support at these conventions was Helen Philleo.2 There were very few of them in those days who had the courage to help fight this battle for their own interests. At the last session she announced a woman's rights meeting and many remained to attend it.
After the summer resorts were closed the meetings were continued in the principal towns. Mrs. Blackwell thus describes an incident in the Fort William Henry hotel: "I remember a rich scene at the breakfast table. Aaron Powell was with us and the colored waiter pointedly offered him the bill of fare. Miss Anthony glanced at it and began to give her order, not to Powell in ladylike modesty, but promptly and energetically to the waiter. He turned a grandiloquent, deaf ear; Powell fidgeted and studied his newspaper; she persisted, determined that no man should come between her and her own order for coffee, cornbread and beefsteak. 'What do I understand is the full order, sir, for your party?' demanded the waiter, doggedly and suggestively. Powell tried to repeat her wishes, but stumbled and stammered and grew red in the face. I put in a working oar to cover the undercurrent of laughter, while she, coolly unconscious of everything except that there was no occasion for a 'middleman,' since she was entirely competent to look after her own breakfast, repeated her order, and the waiter, looking intensely disgusted, concluded to bring something, right or wrong."
While at Easton among her old friends Miss Anthony attended Quaker meeting and the spirit moved her to speak very forcibly, as she relates in a letter: "A young Quaker preacher from Virginia, who happened to be there, said: 'Christ was no agitator, but a peacemaker; George Fox was no agitator; the Friends at the South follow these examples and are never disturbed by fanaticism.' This was more than I could bear; I sprung to my feet and quoted: 'I came into the world not to bring peace but a sword.... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites that devour widow's houses!' Read the New Testament, and say if Christ was not an agitator. Who is this among us crying 'peace, peace, when there is no peace?'—and sat down." It is a matter of regret that she did not tell what became of the gentleman from Virginia.
Miss Anthony writes to Mary Hallowell, during these days: "I am more tired than ever before and know that I am draining the millpond too low each day to be filled quite up during the night, but I am having fine audiences of thinking men and women. Oh, if we could but make our meetings ring like those of the anti-slavery people, wouldn't the world hear us? But to do that we must have souls baptized into the work and consecrated to it."
Mrs. Blackwell's domestic affairs will not permit any further lecturing and Miss Anthony says in a letter to her: "O, dear, dear, how I do wish you could have kept on with me. I can't tell you how utterly awful is the suspense these other women keep me in: first, they can't, then they can, then they won't unless things are so and so; and when I think everything is settled, it all has to be gone over again. The fact is I am not fit to deal with anybody who is not terribly in earnest." To this she replies: "Dear child, I'm sorry I can not help you, but pity a poor married woman and forgive. The ordeal that I have been going through, four sewingwomen each giving about two days, no end of little garments to alter and to make, with a husband whose clothes as well as himself have been neglected for three months, the garden to be covered up from the frost, shrubs to transplant, winter provisions to lay in and only one good-natured, stupid servant to help with all. This, Susan, is 'woman's sphere.'"
As Miss Anthony never approved of a woman's neglecting her household for any purpose, she urged no more but sought elsewhere for assistance. There was not one unmarried woman except herself in all the corps of available speakers and, while some of them could make a trip of a few weeks, not one could be depended on for steady work. In October she secured Mrs. Tracy Cutler for awhile, and later Frances D. Gage, J. Elizabeth Jones and Lucy N. Coleman, but was obliged to hold many meetings alone. These were continued at intervals through the fall of 1859 and the winter and spring of 1860, and numerous pages of foolscap are still in existence containing a carefully kept account of the expenses. Each meeting was made partly to pay for itself, the lecturers received $12 a week, Miss Anthony herself taking only this sum, and it may be believed that no more extended and effective propaganda work ever was accomplished with the same amount of money. While this was being done, she also assisted Clarina Howard Nichols and Susan E. Wattles to plan an important campaign in Kansas with money furnished from the Jackson fund.
She received the following characteristic letter from Rev. Thomas K. Beecher when she asked for the use of his church in Elmira: "I will answer for myself and afterwards append the decision of the trustees. Anybody with good moral character and clean feet is welcome to use our meeting house, if they like, but were I you I should prefer Holden's Hall. But, lastly, I should shrink from holding such a meeting. I fear that you will come to pain of disappointment when your enthusiasm is chilled and bruised against the stone walls of Elmira apathy. More people will attend at Holden's Hall than at church. So speaks in brief, yours with hearty respect."
Mrs. Blackwell writes her teasingly about what she calls her obtuseness, going straight ahead with her work, never knowing when she was snubbed or defeated, giving the undiluted doctrine to people without ever perceiving their frantic efforts to escape, and ignoring all the humorous features of the campaigns. Miss Anthony retorts: "You might give some of the funny things at your own expense, but tell just as many as you please at mine. You see I have always gone with such a blind rush that I never had time to see the ridiculous, and blessed for me and my work and my happiness that I did not." Another invariable habit was never to notice complaints written to her. She always answered the business points but entirely ignored complainings, charges against other people and all extraneous matters.
She relates a significant incident which occurred during this summer campaign when she and Antoinette Blackwell spent a Sunday at Gerrit Smith's. He had established at Peterboro and was maintaining at his own expense a Free church. Mrs. Blackwell, under the influence of Theodore Parker, Chapin and other liberal thinkers, had become very broad in her doctrines, and was greatly pleased at an opportunity to preach for Mr. Smith, thinking to find perfect appreciation and sympathy. After church Miss Anthony went to her room and found her weeping bitterly, but she begged to be left to herself. When more composed she sent for her and told how in the midst of her sermon, when she felt herself surpassing anything she ever had done, she heard a gentle snore, and looking down beheld Mr. Smith sound asleep! She was terribly disappointed and now had made up her mind there was but one thing for the human soul, and that was to live absolutely within itself. There is no friend, no relative, who can enter into the depths of another individuality. A husband and wife may be very happy together; in all the little occurrences which really make up the sum of everyday life, they may be perfectly congenial; but there will be times when each will feel the other separated by an immeasurable distance. Henceforth she would enjoy what solace there was in her religious faith for herself but would expect no other soul to share it with her. "This was to