ANNA HOWABD SHAW 447 living in the new West, while preaching on Cape Cod, or of her travels. One occasion in particular comes to the mind of the writer of this sketch. Miss Shaw was in the drawing room of The Deanery at Bryn Mawr College with the great open fire as the only light, and grouped about the room in such an artistic picture as can be made only by young free spirits, the students who were invited to spend the evening in this informal man- ner, listened with sympathetic laughter and tears to her stories of infinite variety. One summer at Chautauqua there was a young man who was particularly fond of making people feel uncomfortable. One day after he had centered the attention of every one on her he said, '^Miss Shaw, we have been discussing the reason why some women wear their hair short, and as I knew so sensible a woman as yourself would not do it without a very good rea- son, I want to ask you why you wear your hair short. ' ' Miss Shaw told him that his question greatly embarrassed her, that it was one over which she was very sensitive, but that as he had asked her she would tell him: ^^It is a birth mark — I was bom with short hair.'* Needless to say, the tables were so turned on the young man that he was the butt of his own joke for many a day. Few of her speeches are recorded because she always speaks without notes and few reporters or stenographers can go at her pace — for while she speaks most distinctly she speaks very rapidly. She has lived to see political equality achieved in a sufficient number of states to make the question of such importance that political parties in those states vie with each other in the passage of good laws for the home and in the interests of women and children. Had Miss Shaw chosen to use for personal gain her wonder- ful gifts she might have achieved great financial independence and even wealth for herself, but she has given her service and used her talents for the uplift of women and of humanity. She seems to have found the secret of keeping interest and vitality of life in the abandonment of her whole being to the accom- plishment of a great and unselfish purpose.
