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[p. 93] to his gifted, impetuous wife! What a support to her in the path whereunto she was called! His life made hers a possibility. He was as different from her in disposition and manner as in personal appearance. He, reserved, silent, easily depressed; she, lively, fluent, a sunbeam of hopefulness; he, gentle and somewhat yielding; she, energetic and resolved; he, a good listener; she, a good talker. On one occasion, as she entered a room where he and his brother were sitting in perfect silence, she laughingly said, ‘I thought you must both be here, it was so still.’ They formed part of their mother's family until, in 1824, they took a small house in Sansome street, in Philadelphia, a street now wholly given up to shops and offices. As no nurse was kept, Mrs. Mott was closely occupied by the care of her children, the fourth, another Thomas, having been born in 1823. She also did much of the housework, and all her own sewing, as they could afford only one servant and felt the necessity of strict economy. In an old account book we find that the yearly expenses of this household were $655.58 in 1820, increasing to a little over $1,000 in 1824, but did not reach $1,700 till in the '30s, notwithstanding the birth of two more children. It was in those busy years that she read and reread with an absorbing interest the writings of William Penn. She had a folio copy of his works which she would lay open at the foot of her bed, then, drawing her chair near, with a baby on her lap or in the cradle at her feet, she would study the passages that had especially attracted her attention until she had them stored in her retentive memory. In her public discourses throughout her long life she continually used them to illustrate or confirm the views she advanced. She also ‘searched the Scriptures daily,’ gaining an intimate knowledge of them. Her quotations from the Bible were strikingly apt and invariably correct. This familiarity with venerated authorities often served her in good stead. Once, when she was
Medford, MA. 1911.
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