Through Miss Frances Lord, a woman of rare culture and research, my daughter and I had become interested in the school of theosophy, and read “Isis Unveiled,” by Madame Blavatsky, Sinnett’s works on the “Occult World,” and “The Perfect Way,” by Anna Kingsford.  Full of these ideas, I soon interested my cousins in the subject, and we resolved to explore, as far as possible, some of these Eastern mysteries, of which we had heard so much.  We looked in all directions to find some pilot to start us on the right course.  We heard that Gerald Massey was in New York city, lecturing on “The Devil,” “Ghosts,” and “Evil Spirits” generally, so we invited him to visit us and give a course of lectures in Geneva.  But, unfortunately, he was ill, and could not open new fields of thought to us at that time, though we were very desirous to get a glimpse into the unknown world, and hold converse with the immortals.  As I soon left Geneva with my daughter, Mrs. Stanton Lawrence, our occult studies were, for a time, abandoned.

My daughter and I often talked of writing a story, she describing the characters and their environments and I attending to the philosophy and soliloquies.  As I had no special duties in prospect, we decided that this was the time to make our experiment.  Accordingly we hastened to the family homestead at Johnstown, New York, where we could be entirely alone.  Friends on all sides wondered what had brought us there in the depth of the winter.  But we kept our secret, and set ourselves to work with diligence, and after three months our story was finished to our entire satisfaction.  We felt sure that everyone who read it would be deeply interested and that we should readily find a publisher.  We thought of “Our Romance” the first thing in the morning and talked of it the last thing at night.  But alas! friendly critics who read our story pointed out its defects, and in due time we reached their conclusions, and the unpublished manuscript now rests in a pigeonhole of my desk.  We had not many days to mourn our disappointment, as Madge was summoned to her Western home, and Miss Anthony arrived armed and equipped with bushels of documents for vol.  III. of “The History of Woman Suffrage.”  The summer and autumn of 1884 Miss Anthony and I passed at Johnstown, working diligently on the History, indulging only in an occasional drive, a stroll round the town in the evening, or a ride in the open street cars.

Mrs. Devereux Blake was holding a series of conventions, at this time, through the State of New York, and we urged her to expend some of her missionary efforts in my native town, which she did with good results.  As the school election was near at hand Miss Anthony and I had several preliminary meetings to arouse the women to their duty as voters, and to the necessity of nominating some woman for trustee.  When the day for the election arrived the large upper room of the Academy was filled with ladies and gentlemen.  Some timid souls who should have been there stayed