Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/424

402 repulsive form. It was slavery hid in luxury, when refinement seemed to temper some of its worst elements. But, with keen sense of right, even a child of a dozen years saw through the veil, saw the system in its inherent vileness, saw the real curse of slavery in the hardened heart of the slave-holder.

A few years of active life, extensive and most influential labor, many sheaves and a rich harvest, God's blessing on her service, then illness barring her from the platform. How serenely she took up the cross! So specially endowed; men bowing low so readily to the power and magic of her words; she could not but have seen the grand possibilities that were opening before her. How peacefully she accepted the bond, and set herself to training others for the work against which her own door was shut! East, West, North, and South, come up to give testimony that these later years bore ample fruit. How many souls have cause to thank that enforced silence! I have listened to such testimonies, spoken sometimes in tears, on the shores of the Great Lakes and beyond the Mississippi."

From the following facts and anecdotes told by her husband, we see that Angelina united with the highest moral heroism, the physical courage and coolness in the hour of danger that but few men can boast. Theodore D. Weld, in his published sketch, says:

Though high physical courage is also fairly inferrable from her anti-slavery career, yet only those most with her in life's practical affairs can appreciate her self-poise in danger. Peril was to her a sedative; it calmed and girded her, bringing out every resource, and making self-command absolute. She knew nothing of that flutter which confuses. Great danger instantly brought thought and feeling to a focus, and held them there. Several perilous emergencies in her life are vividly recalled — such as being overturned while in a carriage with a child in her arms, the horse meanwhile floundering amid the débris, a shaft broken, and dash-board kicked into splinters. At another time, shots at the road-side set off the horses in a run. Seeing her husband, in his struggle to rein them in, jerked up from his seat and held thus braced and half-standing, she caught him round the waist, adding her weight to his, and thus enabled him to pull the harder, till the steady, silent tug upon the reins tamed down the steeds. Her residence at Belleville, N. J., had no near neighbors, stood back from the road, and was nearly hidden by trees and shrubbery. The old stone structure, dating back to 1700, was known as the "haunted house." Being very large, with barn, sheds, and several out-houses, it was specially attractive to stragglers and burglars. Stories had been long afloat of outrages perpetrated there, among which was a murder a century before, with a burglary and robbery more recent. We had not been long there, when one night Angeline, waked by suspicious noises, listened, till certain that a burglar must be in the house. Then, stealing softly from the room, she struck a light, and explored from cellar to attic, looking into closets, behind doors. and under beds. For a slight, weak woman, hardly able to lift an empty tea-kettle, thus to dare, shows, whether we call it courage