should bear it. There is not a
man in the whole anti-slavery ranks who could do it. I wish I could
help you but I can not. You are one of those who are sufficient unto
themselves and I thank God every day for you. Antoinette can not come
because she is so busy with that baby!" From Mr. May came these
comforting words: "We sympathize in all your trials and hope that
fairer skies will be over your head before long. Garrison says, 'Give
my love to Susan, and tell her I will do for her what I would hardly do
for anybody else.' I hope from that he means to attend your Rochester
and Syracuse conventions.... You must be dictator to all the agents in
New York; when you say, 'Go,' they must go, or 'Come,' they must come,
or 'Do this,' they must do it. I see no other way of getting along, and
I am sure to your gentle and wholesome rule they will cheerfully defer.
God bless you all; and if you don't get pay in money from your
audiences, you will have the satisfaction of knowing you have given
them the hard, solid truth as they never had it before."

These meetings often took the form of debates between the speakers and
the audience, and frequently lasted till midnight. Of one place Miss
Anthony says in her diary, "All rich farmers, living in princely style,
but no moral backbone;" at another time: "I spoke for an hour, but my
heart fails me. Can it be that my stammering tongue ever will be
loosed? I am more and more dissatisfied with my efforts." The diary
shows that they had many delightful visits among friends and many good
times sandwiched between the disagreeable features of their trip, and
that everywhere they roused the community to the highest pitch on the
slavery question. She gives a description of one of these gatherings at
Easton:

That Sunday meeting was the most impressive I ever attended. Aaron
and I had spoken, Charles Remond followed, picturing the contumely
and opprobrium everywhere heaped upon the black man and all
identified with him, the ostracism from social circles, etc. At the
climax he exclaimed: "I have a fond and loving mother, as true and
noble a woman as God ever made; but whenever she thinks of her
absent son, it is that he is an outcast." He sank into his seat,
overwhelmed with emotion, and wept like a child. In a moment, while
sitting, he said: "Some may call this weak, but I should feel
myself the less a man, if tears did not flow at a thought like
that