2nd mo. 15th day.—­This day I call myself eighteen.  It seems impossible that I can be so old, and even at this age I find myself possessed of no more knowledge than I ought to have had at twelve.  Dr. Allen, a Phrenologist, gave us a short lecture this morning and examined a few heads, mine among them.  He described only the good organs and said nothing of the bad.  I should like to know the whole truth.

Susan relates with a good deal of satisfaction that she has written a letter to a schoolmate at home, without putting it on the slate for the teacher to see.  A few days later Deborah sends for her.  She “went down with cheerfulness,” but what was her astonishment to see Deborah with the intercepted letter open in her hand!  Susan closes her account of the interview by saying, “Little did I think, when I was writing that letter, that I was committing such an enormous crime.”

Learning that a young friend had married a widower with six children, she comments in her diary, “I should think any female would rather live and die an old maid.”  She has a cold and cough for which Deborah gives her a “Carthartick,” followed by some “Laudanum in a silver spoon.”  “The beautiful spring weather,” she says, “inhales me with fresh vigor.”  She sees some spiderwebs in the schoolroom and, her domestic habits asserting themselves, gets a broom and mounts the desks to sweep them down, “little thinking of the mortification and tears it was to occasion.”  Finally she steps upon Deborah’s desk and breaks the hinges on the lid.  That personage is informed by an assistant teacher and arrives on the scene: 

“Deborah, I have broken your desk.”  She appeared not to notice me, walked over, examined the desk and asked the teacher who broke it.  “What!  Susan Anthony step on my desk!  I would not have set a child upon it,” she said, and much more which I can not write.  “How came you to step on it?” she asked, but I was too full to speak and rushed from the room in tears.  That evening, after we read in the Testament, she said that where there was no desire for moral improvement there would be no improvement in reading.  There was one by the side of her who had not desired moral improvement and had made no advancement in Literature.

This deliberate cruelty to one whose heart was bursting with sorrow and regret!  “Never will this day be forgotten,” says the diary.  In speaking of this incident Miss Anthony said:  “Not once, in all the sixty years that have passed, has the thought of that day come to my mind without making me turn cold and sick at heart.”

On one occasion when a composition had been severely criticised, Susan blazed forth the inquiry why she always was censured and her sister praised.  “Because,” was the reply, “thy sister Guelma does the best she is capable of, but thou dost not.  Thou hast greater abilities and I demand of thee the best of thy capacity.”  Throughout this little record are continual expressions of the pain of separation from the dear home, of keen disappointment if the expected letter fails to come, and most affectionate references to the beloved parents, brothers and sisters.  Even the austere Deborah is mentioned always with respect and kindness for, notwithstanding her frequent censure, she inspired the girls with love and reverence.