On the way to Kennett Square, a young gentleman pointed out to us the home of Benjamin West, who distinguished himself, to the disgust of broadbrims generally, as a landscape painter.  In commencing his career, it is said he made use of the tail of a cat in lieu of a brush.  Of course Benjamin’s first attempts were on the sly, and he could not ask paterfamilias for money to buy a brush without encountering the good man’s scorn.  Whether, in the hour of his need and fresh enthusiasm, poor puss was led to the sacrificial altar, or whether he found her reposing by the roadside, having paid the debt of Nature, our informant could not say; enough that, in time, he owned a brush and immortalized himself by his skill in its use.  Such erratic ones as Whittier, West, and Anna Dickinson go to prove that even the prim, proper, perfect Quakers are subject to like infirmities with the rest of the human family.

I had long heard of the “Progressive Friends” in the region round Longwood; had read the many bulls they issued from their “yearly meetings” on every question, on war, capital punishment, temperance, slavery, woman’s rights; had learned that they were turning the cold shoulder on the dress, habits, and opinions of their Fathers; listening to the ministrations of such worldlings as William Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Tilton, and Oliver Johnson, in a new meeting house, all painted and varnished, with cushions, easy seats, carpets, stoves, a musical instrument—­shade of George Fox, forgive—­and three brackets with vases on the “high seat,” and, more than all that, men and women were indiscriminately seated throughout the house.

All this Miss Anthony and I beheld with our own eyes, and, in company with Sarah Pugh and Chandler Darlington, did sit together in the high seat and talk in the congregation of the people.  There, too, we met Hannah Darlington and Dinah Mendenhall,—­names long known in every good work,—­and, for the space of one day, did enjoy the blissful serenity of that earthly paradise.  The women of Kennett Square were celebrated not only for their model housekeeping but also for their rare cultivation on all subjects of general interest.

In November I again started on one of my Western trips, but, alas! on the very day the trains were changed, and so I could not make connections to meet my engagements at Saginaw and Marshall, and just saved myself at Toledo by going directly from the cars before the audience, with the dust of twenty-four hours’ travel on my garments.  Not being able to reach Saginaw, I went straight to Ann Arbor, and spent three days most pleasantly in visiting old friends, making new ones, and surveying the town, with its grand University.  I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of Mr. Seaman, a highly cultivated Democratic editor, author of “Progress of Nations.”  A choice number of guests gathered round his hospitable board on that occasion, over which his wife presided with dignity and grace.  Woman suffrage was the target for the combined wit and satire of the company, and, after four hours of uninterrupted sharpshooting, pyrotechnics, and laughter, we dispersed to our several abodes, fairly exhausted with the excess of enjoyment.