CHAPTER XXIX FALLING PETALS "Having known Lucretia Mott, not only in the flush of life, when all her faculties were at their zenith, but in the repose of advanced age, her withdrawal from our midst seems as natural and as beautiful as the changing foliage of some grand oak from the spring-time to the autumn."--ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.
Old age is apt to follow great personages, like the moon the sun, to distort the shadowy shapes of those who have lingered too long. But the years were kind to Lucretia, and she grew venerable without the caricature of mental affliction. She suffered no serious decay, yet year by year, month by month, and finally day by day, the body weak- ened, the spirit no longer could apply the lash, and she laid herself down to die, serenely and without fear. She had faith in the universal fitness of Creation; death must inevitably dissolve the physical body. On her death bed she held fast to her integrity, saying: "I do not dread death. Indeed, I dread nothing; I am ready to go or to stay, but I feel that it is time for me to go"; and again, "I am willing to acknowledge all ignorance of the future, and there leave it. It does not trouble me. We know only that our poor remains 'Softly lie, and sweetly sleep Low in the ground.'"
At half past seven o'clock on the "eleventh day of eleventh month," 1880, the torch flickered out. She was laid to rest Sunday afternoon in the Friends' burying ground at Fair Hill on the German- town Road in the presence of a large concourse of about two thousand persons, many of whom were representatives of the race she had done so much to free. Before death she had commanded her family, ". . . . remember that my life has been a simple one; let simplicity mark the last done for me." In the house at Roadside there had been the Quaker season of solemn silence, after which short remarks had been made by those who felt moved to speak. A friend quoted the passage, "Know ye not -295- |