“We ordered our furniture to be made of cherry, and quite enjoy the cheapness of our outfit as well as our manner of life; for the less we spend, the less the Anti-Slavery Society will have to pay my Theodore for his labors as editor of all the extra publications of the Society.”

Thus some high or unselfish motive inspired all their conduct and influenced every arrangement.  Nothing superfluous or merely ornamental found a place with these true and zealous followers of Him whose precepts guided their lives.  Everything in doors and out served a special purpose of utility, or suggested some duty or great moral aim.  Angelina was exceedingly fond of flowers, but refrained from cultivating them, because of the time required, which she thought could be better employed.  She felt she had no right to use one moment for her own selfish gratification which could be given to some more necessary work.  Therefore, though both sisters were peculiarly gifted with a love of the beautiful, as their frequent descriptions of natural scenery show, they contented themselves, from principle, with the enjoyment of “glorious sunsets,” and with the flowers of the field and wayside.  Later they learned a different appreciation of all the innocent pleasures of life; but at the time I am describing, they had just emerged from Quaker asceticism, and in the flush of their new religion, and looking upon their past years as almost wasted, they were eager only to make amends for them.  In one of her letters to her English friend, Angelina acknowledges the present from her of a large picture of a Kneeling Slave, and adds:—­

“We purpose pasting it on binder’s boards, binding it with colored paper, and fixing it over our mantelpiece.  It is just such a speaking monument of suffering as we want in our parlor, and suits my fireboard most admirably.  I first covered this with plain paper, and then arranged as well as I could about forty anti-slavery pictures upon it.  I never saw one like it, but we hope other abolitionists will make them when they see what an ornamental and impressive article of furniture can thus be manufactured.  We want those who come into our house to see at a glance that we are on the side of the oppressed and the poor.”

Sarah Douglass spent a day with them in September, and as I can have no more fitting place to show how conscientious were these rare spirits in their practical testimony against the color prejudice, I will quote a few passages from a letter written to Sarah Douglass after her departure from the circle where she had been treated as a most honored guest.  Sarah Grimke begins as follows:—­