James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

[480] but two years old. The last night of his life was passed in an anti-slavery meeting, where he spoke earnestly; and on his way home, not feeling well, he stopped at a druggist's to get some medicine, and died there without a struggle.

Her mother, Mary Edmundson, was born in Delaware, of an aristocratic family. She is a woman of refinement and cultivation, and was carefully reared in conditions of ease and luxury.

Both were descendants of the early Quaker settlers, and rigid adherents to the orthodox Friends. Their courtship lasted thirteen years, showing the persistency and fidelity of the father on one side, and the calm deliberation of the mother on the other. As a baby, Anna was cross, sleepless, restless, and crying continually with a loud voice, thus preparing her lungs for future action. She was a wayward, wilful, intensely earnest, imaginative child, causing herself and her elders much trouble and unhappiness. They, seeing her impatience of control, endeavored to “break her will,” --a saying that has worked as much cruelty in the world as the proverb of Solomon, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.” Fortunately they did not succeed, and through the triumph of that indomitable will we boast to-day that the most popular American orator is a woman. She was considered an incorrigible child at school as well as at home. Though she always knew her lessons, the absurd and arbitrary discipline so chafed her free spirit that she was generally in a state of rebellion.

With courageous defiance she would submit to punishment rather than rules she thought foolish and unnecessary. She had an intuitive knowledge of character, and early saw the hypocrisy, deceit, and sham of the world,--the hollowness of its ceremonies, forms, and opinions; and with wonderful powers of sarcasm she could lay bare the faults and follies of those about her. Hence she was a terror to timid, designing teachers and scholars; and good children were warned against