The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
Don't worry now if you do not hear from me again until I touch
Yankee soil; and don't worry if the wind blows or if you learn the
vessel is late or lost. If the Servia fail to land me safe and
sound, don't repine or stop because I am not, but buckle on a new
and stronger harness and do double work for the good cause of
woman. You have the best of judgment in our work and are capable of
doing much if only you had confidence in yourself, so whatever
comes to me, do you be all the more for the less that _I_ am.
Half of Miss Anthony's nine-months' trip abroad had been spent in Great
Britain. To her all the other attractions of the old world were as
nothing compared with its living, breathing humanity. On the continent
she was deprived of any exchange of thought with its people because she
spoke no language but her own, and this made her prefer England; but
there was another and a stronger interest--the great progressive
movement which was going forward in regard to woman. Here she found
women of fine intellect and high social position engaged in the same
work to which she had given more than thirty years of her own life; and
here she met sympathy and recognition which would have been impossible
in any other country in Europe. Her central thought in going to Great
Britain had been to secure the co-operation of Englishwomen in holding
an international suffrage convention. At first her proposition met with
no response. The most radical of English women were conservative
compared to those of America, but after they had become thoroughly
acquainted with Mrs. Stanton and herself and prejudice had been
supplanted by confidence, the idea began to be more favorably regarded.
One serious difficulty in the way of the proposed convention lay in the
fact that the suffrage women of England and Scotland were not themselves
in thorough unison as to plans and purposes. No definite action was
taken until the last afternoon of their stay, when, at the reception
given in their honor by Dr. Ewing Whittle, in Liverpool, with the hearty
concurrence of Mrs. McLaren, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Scatcherd and Mrs. Parker,
who had accompanied Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton to see them safely on
board their vessel, a strong committee was formed to promote
international organization.
[Illustration: Margaret Bright Lucas (Signed: "Yours affectionately
Margaret Bright Lucas")]
They sailed from Liverpool on the Servia, November 17, 1883. Among their
fellow voyagers were Mrs. Cornelia C. Hussey, of Orange, N. J., to whom
the cause of woman suffrage and Miss Anthony personally are deeply
indebted; and Mrs. Margaret B. Sullivan, of Chicago, the distinguished
editorial writer. There was some lovely weather, which was greatly
enjoyed, but heavy fogs impeded the ship and it was just ten days from
the time of starting when, on November 27, they steamed into New York
harbor and stepped again on the shores of loved America.
FOOTNOTES:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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