On returning to Massachusetts she was invited by Mrs. Lucy Stone to deliver the address in New England. This inaugurated a work of many years throughout the country and its adjacent provinces that was prosecuted from the platform and occasionally from the pulpit. This work proved of the deepest interest to Miss Eastman, and, judging from the unanimous tone of audiences and press, her listeners found it no less so. It soon became an open question with her whether to abandon the congenial educational work for that of the platform. She reminded her mother, who was naturally chary of her daughter's reputation, that in advocating an unpopular cause she should pass out of the accustomed sphere of general sympathy and probably meet criticism and even misrepresentation, and asked her if she could bear it. Her mother felt most keenly the need of service along the line of the new departure, and replied, in the brave spirit of the mother of the Gracchi, " It will be hard, but I can endure even that better than I can bear to have you reach my age and feel, as I do, that I have seen all my life the great harm to both men and women which this non-representation of women works, and yet have done nothing to correct it." In this the mother was mistaken, for within the limits of a private sphere she had valorously and with rare influence championed the cause of equal rights and opportunities, in which she had the sympathy of her husband. The world was kinder to her daughter than she had dared hope, for these heroic souls, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mrs. Livermore, and their cotemporary peers, with a dignity and a sweetness befitting their cause, turned the sharpest point of their opponents' steel.
From the platform she spoke along the lines of reform in way of "Equal Suffrage," "Progress in the Aims and Methods of Education," "Rights and Wrongs of the Indians," "Duties of Government," "Literature," "Travel," and other miscellaneous topics.
Miss Eastman could scarcely have received more encouragement than she did in her public career, whether from her audiences, the press, or from the leaders of thought throughout the country. Her arguments were always logical and given with candor. That she had the faculty of captivating her audience is abundantly shown, but it was accomplished by no meretricious arts or display.
The Lawrence American said, "Miss Eastman's address displayed the thinking, philosophic power of analysis of John Stuart Mill, while the earnestness of her manner proved clearly the earnestness of her sentiments."
The St. Louis Globe said: "Miss Howe addresses you. Miss Eastman talks to you. With a subtle and effective sarcasm she laughs you out of your prejudices. She reasons with you. With an eloquence that stirs your blood, she rouses you from your apathy; and, having said all this and much more, she leaves the platform, while the audience applauds her to the echo."
The Pittsburg correspondent of the Cincinnati Commercial said : "Miss Eastman is undoubtedly one of the largest-brained women in America. A clear, logical thinker and a woman of scholarly training, she has thought out for herself the questions with which she deals, and she hits the nail on the head every time.
"I did not say she was a grave woman': she is one of the brightest, merriest women alive. I said she was a grand woman, and I'd like to say it again."
Colonel T. W. Higginson, in an article on "How to Speak," after expressing the great delight to his ear of listening to a perfectly tlistinct and clear-cut utterance, says, "If you wish to know what I mean by a clear and satisfactory utterance, go to hear Miss East- man speak." Again he says: "She is a thinker, not a mere agitator. She always has something fresh to Say, and her talk is up to the day."
Wendell Phillips, after listening to one of her speeches, commented on her "words of eminent wisdom."
Mrs. Howe contributes her word for the publishers of this book: "Miss Eastman is a woman of superior culture and abiUty, eloquent with pen and tongue. Her interest in public questions has made her gifts available for the benefit of the community in which she has long had her home. She has always been an ardent
