of female blandishment and female influence, would surrender at once, and female suffrage would become constitutional and lawful.  Sir, I insist upon it that, in deference to this committee, in deference to the fact that it needs this sort of regimen and medicine, this whole subject should be so referred.”

This gives a very fair idea of the character of the arguments produced by our opponents, from the inauguration of the movement.  But, as there are no arguments in a republican government in favor of an aristocracy of sex, ridicule was really the only available weapon.  After declaring “that no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed,” “that taxation without representation is tyranny,” it is difficult to see on what basis one-half the people are disfranchised.

CHAPTER XX.

WRITING “THE HISTORY OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.”

The four years following the Centennial were busy, happy ones, of varied interests and employments, public and private.  Sons and daughters graduating from college, bringing troops of young friends to visit us; the usual matrimonial entanglements, with all their promises of celestial bliss intertwined with earthly doubts and fears; weddings, voyages to Europe, business ventures—­in this whirl of plans and projects our heads, hearts, and hands were fully occupied.  Seven boys and girls dancing round the fireside, buoyant with all life’s joys opening before them, are enough to keep the most apathetic parents on the watch-towers by day and anxious even in dreamland by night.  My spare time, if it can be said that I ever had any, was given during these days to social festivities.  The inevitable dinners, teas, picnics, and dances with country neighbors, all came round in quick succession.  We lived, at this time, at Tenafly, New Jersey, not far from the publisher of the Sun, Isaac W. England, who also had seven boys and girls as full of frolic as our own.  Mrs. England and I entered into all their games with equal zest.  The youngest thought half the fun was to see our enthusiasm in “blindman’s buff,” “fox and geese,” and “bean bags.”  It thrills me with delight, even now, to see these games!

Mr. England was the soul of hospitality.  He was never more happy than when his house was crowded with guests, and his larder with all the delicacies of the season.  Though he and Mr. Stanton were both connected with that dignified journal, the New York Sun, yet they often joined in the general hilarity.  I laugh, as I write, at the memory of all the frolics we had on the blue hills of Jersey.