her sat a large semicircle of ladies, and close about her a group
of her companions, who would have been remarkable anywhere for the
intellectual refinement and elevated expression of their earnest
faces. Opposite sat Charles Sumner, looking fatigued and worn, but
listening with alert attention. So these two veterans in the cause
of freedom were fitly and suggestively brought face to face.

The scene was impressive. It was simple, grand, historic. Women
have often appeared in history--noble, brilliant, heroic women; but
_woman_ collectively, impersonally, today asks recognition in the
commonwealth--not in virtue of hereditary noblesse--not for any
excellence or achievement of individuals, but on the one ground of
her possessing the same rights, interests and responsibilities as
man. There was nothing in this gathering at the Capitol to touch
the imagination with illusion, no ball-room splendor of light,
fragrance and jewels, none of those graceful enchantments by which
women have been content to reign through brief dynasties of beauty
and briefer fealties of homage. The cool light of a winter morning,
the bare walls of a committee room, the plain costumes of everyday
use, held the mind strictly to the actual facts which gave that
group of representative men and women its moral significance, its
severe but picturesque unity. Some future artist, looking back for
a memorable illustration of this period, will put this new
"Declaration of Independence" upon canvas, and will ransack the
land for portraits of those ladies who spoke for their countrywomen
at the Capitol, and of those senators and representatives who gave
them audience. Mrs. Stanton was followed by Miss Anthony, morally
as inevitable and impersonal as a Greek chorus, but physically and
intellectually individual, intense, original, full of humor and
good nature.

The Hearth and Home, in Photographs of our Agitators, thus depicts Miss
Anthony on this occasion:

She is the Bismarck; she plans the campaigns, provides the
munitions of war, organizes the raw recruits, sets the squadrons in
the field. Indeed, in presence of a timid lieutenant, she sometimes
heads the charge; but she is most effective as the directing
generalissimo. Miss Anthony is a quick, bright, nervous, alert
woman of fifty or so--not at all inclined to
embo