MY DEAR MOTHER:  It really seems tonight as if I were parting with something dear—­saying good-by to somebody I loved.  In the last few hours I have lived over nearly all of life’s struggles, and the most painful is the memory of my mother’s long and weary efforts to get her six children up into womanhood and manhood.  My thought centers on your struggle especially because of the proof-reading of Alice Gary’s story this week.  I can see the old home—­the brick-makers—­the dinner-pails—­the sick mother—­the few years of more fear than hope in the new house, and the hard years since.  And yet with it all, I know there was an undercurrent of joy and love which makes the summing-up vastly in their favor.  How I wish you and Mary and Hannah and Guelma could have been here—­and yet it is nothing—­and yet it is much.

My constantly recurring thought and prayer now are that the coming fraction of the century, whether it be small or large, may witness nothing less worthy in my life than has the half just closed—­that no word or act of mine may lessen its weight in the scale of truth and right.

Then there is the bare mention of a luncheon a few days before with Alice and Phoebe Cary, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Hooker.  What a treat would have been a resume of the conversation of that gifted quintette of women!

Mrs. Stanton was ill and could not attend the reception, which was a great disappointment to Miss Anthony.  They had shared so much trouble that she felt most anxious they should share this one great pleasure.  In the diary at midnight is recorded:  “Fiftieth birthday!  One half-century done, one score years of it hard labor for bettering humanity—­temperance—­emancipation—­enfranchisement—­oh, such a struggle!  Terribly stormy night, but a goodly company and many, many splendid tributes to my work.  Really, if I had been dead and these the last words, neither press nor friends could have been more generous and appreciative.”

This beautiful anniversary was a sweet oasis in the severe monotony of a life which had been filled always with hard work, criticism and misrepresentation, although it was only a public expression of the numerous and strong friendships which had been many times manifested in private.  The birthday celebration served also to disprove the oft-repeated assertion that all women conceal their age, but though Miss Anthony made this frank avowal of her fifty years, there was scarcely a newspaper which did not introduce its comments with the usual silly and threadbare remarks.

After the people began to recover in a social, intellectual and financial way from the effects of the Civil War, the lyceum bureau became a marked feature in literary life.  The principal bureaus were in New York, Boston and Chicago.  Their managers engaged the best speakers and each season marked out a route, made the appointments, advertised extensively and sent them throughout the country.  They paid excellent