e refused
them. Some of the expressions in her letters of those busy days show the
state of her mind better than could volumes of description:

All the work of today put aside to grope into the old past. I feel
like rushing to you this very minute, but here Mrs. Stanton and I
are, scratching, scratching every hour, not each other's eyes but
the History papers. I am a fish out of water.... It makes me feel
growly all the time.... I can not get away from my ball and
chain.... I think we'll make things snap and crackle a little....
This is the biggest swamp I ever tried to wriggle through.... We'll
both put on our thinking caps and I guess get quite a lot of
funnies in the reminiscences.... Now here is the publisher's
screech for money.... O, to get out of this History prison!... I am
too tired to write--I mean too lazy.... No warhorse ever panted for
the rush of battle more than I for outside work. I love to make
history but hate to write it.

On November 12 Mrs. Stanton's seventieth birthday was celebrated by a
large reception held in the parlors of Dr. Lozier in New York, where
Mrs. Stanton read a charming paper on "The Pleasures of Old Age." Her
daughter, Harriot Stanton Blatch, sent the following bright and breezy
message:

... How I wish I could give my congratulations in the flesh!
Distance is the foe of love. Kiss dear Susan and let her kiss you
for me. On November 12 I shall think of you both, for you two are
not easily separated in my mind, and there will be a tenderness in
my thoughts and a thankfulness that you both have lived. In your
worries over the History, remember that at least one woman
appreciates the fact that her life has been made easier because of
your combined public work. You ought to be overflowing with
gratitude for each other's existence, for neither without the other
would have achieved the work you have accomplished. Every day of
your lives let your hearts praise the good fortune that brought you
together. Friendship is the grandest relation in the world, and I
feel infinitely blessed in having two such women as friends. You
and dear Susan are not yet to be sainted; you have no end of work
in you still, and must labor on for many a long year, and gain many
a triumphant victory. I throw up my cap and cry hurrah for you two
grand old warriors!