ebted first of all to Susan B. Anthony.[31]

After speaking at intervals through the summer, she started on a
regular tour early in the fall, writing Lydia Mott: "I can not feel
easy in my conscience to be dumb in an hour like this. I am speaking
now extempore and more to my satisfaction than ever before. I am amazed
at myself, but I could not do it if any of our other speakers were
listening to me. I am entirely off old anti-slavery grounds and on the
new ones thrown up by the war. What a stay, counsel and comfort you
have been to me, dear Lydia, ever since that eventful little temperance
meeting in that cold, smoky chapel in 1852. How you have compelled me
to feel myself competent to go forward when trembling with doubt and
distrust. I never can express the magnitude of my indebtedness to you."

A letter from Abby Kelly Foster at this time said: "I am especially
gratified to know that you have entered the field in earnest as your
own speaker, which you ought to have done years ago instead of always
pushing others to the front and taking the drudgery yourself." Miss
Anthony was very successful, each day gaining more courage. Her sole
theme was "Emancipation the Duty-of the Government." A prominent
citizen of Schuyler county wrote her after she had spoken at
Mecklinburg: "There is not a man among all the political speakers who
can make that duty as plain as you have done." Her whole heart was in
the work and she was constantly inspired by the thought that the day of
deliverance for the slave was approaching.

[Illustration:

FATHER AND MOTHER OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
AGED 60, FROM DAGUERREOTYPES]

At the height of her enthusiasm came the heaviest blow it would have
been possible for her to receive. She had come home for a few days, and
the Sunday morning after election was sitting with her father talking
over the political situation. They had been reading the Liberator and
the Anti-Slavery Standard and were discussing the probable effect of
Lincoln's proclamation, when suddenly he was stricken with acute
neuralgia of the stomach. He had not had a day's illness in forty years
and had not the slightest premonition of this attack. He lingered in
great suffering for two weeks and died on November 25, 1862.

No words can express the terrible bereavement of his family. He had
been to them a tower of strength. From childhood his sons and daughters
had carried to him every grief and perplexity and there never had been
a