tter, that societies,
friendships even, never were formed, that we all were Robinson
Crusoes, than that the terrible tragedy of soul-annihilation
through conformity be so conspicuous in the drama of human life.
How many wives do you see who are not acting this tragedy? How many
husbands who do not applaud? Hence degeneracy after marriage, more
directly of the wife than the husband, but too often of both.

As soon as Miss Anthony reached home, the last of November, she began
preparing for another winter campaign in the interest of the petitions,
and also for a course of lectures to be given in Rochester by the
prominent men of the day. Lucy Stone wrote her at this time: "Your
letter full of plans reaches me here. I wish I lived near enough to
catch some of your magnetism. For the first time in my life I feel, day
after day, completely discouraged. When my Harry sent your letter to me
he said, 'Susan wants you to write a tract, and I say, Amen.' When I go
home I will see whether I have any faith in nay power to do it....
Susan, don't you lecture this winter on pain of my everlasting
displeasure. I am going to retire from the field; and if you go to work
too soon and kill yourself, the two wheelhorses will be gone and then
the chariot will stop."

Arguments were of no avail, however, when the field was waiting and the
workers few, and while Miss Anthony was ever ready to excuse others,
she never spared herself. She decided before starting to take out a
policy in the New York Life Insurance Company. The medical certificate
given on December 18, 1855, by Dr. Edward M. Moore, the leading surgeon
of western New York, read as follows: "Height, 5 ft. 5 in.; figure,
full; chest measure 38 in.; weight, 156 lbs.; complexion, fair; habits,
healthy and active; nervous affections, none; character of respiration,
clear, resonant, murmur perfect; heart, normal in rhythm and valvular
sound; pulse 66 per minute; disease, none. The life is a very good
one." And so it has proved to be, as she has paid her premiums for over
forty years.[21]

Just before she was ready to start on her long lecture tour in the
interest of educational, civil and political rights for women, she
received a letter, which was an entire surprise and added a new feature
to the work to which she was devoting her time and energy.

[Footnote 20: At this Boston convention Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a
flowery description of the changed condition w