inks within me; so few seem to use their brain-power on ways and
means." And again: "This drain of helpless women, able and willing to
work but utterly ignorant of how to do it, wears me out body and soul."
She was greatly distressed because so many of the younger women were
frequently incapacitated by illness, and writes: "O, the weak-bodied
girls of the present generation, they make me heart-sick!"

But never did the women themselves know of these feelings. To the
younger ones she wrote: "Don't give up 'beat' at any of those places
till I have dropped my plummet into them.... Your young shoulders will
have to learn to bear the crotchets of all sorts of people and not bend
or break under them.... Put all the blame on me; they may abuse me but
not you.... It makes my heart ache every minute to see you so tired....
Vent all your ill-feelings on me but keep sweet as June roses to
everybody else. It does not pay to lose your temper.... You will have to
learn to let people pile injustice on you and then trust to time to
right it all." If on rare occasions she spoke a word of censure, it was
followed by a letter in the next mail, full of sorrow and repentance.
She always signed herself, even in the darkest hours, "Yours with love
and hope." Beautiful optimism, sublime courage!

Sunday, February 3, 1884, Miss Anthony read in the morning papers of the
sudden death of Wendell Phillips. He had been to her always the one
being without a peer, the purest, sweetest, best of men. The news
overwhelmed her with grief and she wrote at once to Robert Purvis:

How cut down I am at the telegram, "Wendell Phillips is dead," and
I know you are equally so. I hope you can go on to Boston to the
funeral, and help tenderly to lay away that most precious human
clay. Who shall say the fitting word for Wendell Phillips at this
last hour as lovingly and beautifully as he has done so many, many
times for the grand men and women who have gone before him? There
seem none left but you and Parker Pillsbury to pour out your souls'
dearest love in his memory. Would that I had the tongue of an angel
and could go and bear my testimony to the grandeur of that noblest
of God's works! I can think of no one who can rightly and fully
estimate that glorious character. What a sad hour for his beloved
wife! He said to me on my last visit: "My one wish has come to be
that I may live to bury Ann." He d