was a cultured and estimable woman, but she represented the spirit of
that age toward childhood, one of chilling severity and constant
repression, when reproof was as liberally administered as praise was
conscientiously withheld.
[Footnote 4: Sixty-five years later, this cousin, Nancy Howe Clark,
aged eighty-seven, wrote Miss Anthony:
"The year I spent at your father's was the happiest of my whole long
life. How well I remember the sweet voices saying 'Cousin Nancy,' and
the affectionate way in which I was received by your dear father and
mother. It had never been my fortune before to live in a household with
an educated man at its head, and I felt a little shy of your father but
soon found there was no occasion. Although it was a period of great
financial depression, he always found time to be social and kindly in
his family. He seemed to have an eye for everything, his business, the
school and every good work. I considered your father and mother a model
husband and wife and found it hard to leave such a loving home."]
[Footnote 5: In later years the younger children were instructed on
piano and violin, and he enjoyed nothing better than listening to
them.]
[Footnote 6: In reading them over, sixty years afterwards, she said
mournfully, "That has been the way all my life. Whenever I take a pen
in hand I always seem to be mounted on stilts." To those who are
acquainted with her simple, straightforward style of speaking, this
will seem hardly possible, yet it is probably one of the reasons which
led her, very early in her public career, to abandon all attempts at
written speeches.]
CHAPTER III.
FINANCIAL CRASH--THE TEACHER.
1838--1845.
The prosperous days of the Anthonys were drawing to a close. All
manufacturing industries of the country were in a ruinous state. The
unsound condition of the banks with their depreciated and fluctuating
currency had created financial chaos. Overproduction of cotton goods on
a credit basis, inordinate speculation, reduction of duties on
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