Miss Anthony and I went to Geneva the next day to visit Mrs. Miller and to meet, by appointment, Mrs. Eliza Osborne, the niece of Lucretia Mott, and eldest daughter of Martha C. Wright.  We anticipated a merry meeting, but Miss Anthony and I were so tired that we no doubt appeared stupid.  In a letter to Mrs. Miller afterward, Mrs. Osborne inquired why I was “so solemn.”  As I pride myself on being impervious to fatigue or disease, I could not own up to any disability, so I turned the tables on her in the following letter: 

     “New York, 26 West 61st Street,

     November 12, 1891.

     “Dear Eliza: 

“In a recent letter to Mrs. Miller, speaking of the time when we last met, you say, ‘Why was Mrs. Stanton so solemn?’ to which I reply:  Ever since an old German emperor issued an edict, ordering all the women under that flag to knit when walking on the highway, when selling apples in the market place, when sitting in the parks, because ‘to keep women out of mischief their hands must be busy,’ ever since I read that, I have felt ‘solemn’ whenever I have seen any daughters of our grand Republic knitting, tatting, embroidering, or occupied with any of the ten thousand digital absurdities that fill so large a place in the lives of Eve’s daughters.

“Looking forward to the scintillations of wit, the philosophical researches, the historical traditions, the scientific discoveries, the astronomical explorations, the mysteries of theosophy, palmistry, mental science, the revelations of the unknown world where angels and devils do congregate, looking forward to discussions of all these grand themes, in meeting the eldest daughter of David and Martha Wright, the niece of Lucretia Mott, the sister-in-law of William Lloyd Garrison, a queenly-looking woman five feet eight in height, and well proportioned, with glorious black eyes, rivaling even De Stael’s in power and pathos, one can readily imagine the disappointment I experienced when such a woman pulled a cotton wash rag from her pocket and forthwith began to knit with bowed head.  Fixing her eyes and concentrating her thoughts on a rag one foot square; it was impossible for conversation to rise above the wash-rag level!  It was enough to make the most aged optimist ‘solemn’ to see such a wreck of glorious womanhood.

“And, still worse, she not only knit steadily, hour after hour, but she bestowed the sweetest words of encouragement on a young girl from the Pacific Coast, who was embroidering rosebuds on another rag, the very girl I had endeavored to rescue from the maelstrom of embroidery, by showing her the unspeakable folly of giving her optic nerves to such base uses, when they were designed by the Creator to explore the planetary world, with chart and compass to guide mighty ships across the sea, to lead the sons of Adam with divinest love from earth to heaven.  Think of the great beseeching optic nerves and muscles by which