much to women. The men have thrown themselves pretty much into simple money-making. You have no idea how they shirk everything which interferes with this, how cowardly they have grown about everything which threatens pecuniary loss. It is the women who are caring for the things which most distinguish civilized men from savages. But the best women are leaving no descendants. They train no men. The best I know do not marry, so that society gets but little from them. I know a dozen who will pass away leaving nothing but gracious memories. You are one of them. You think apparently that you are serving the State sufficiently by attention to forests and infant schools. Erreur, erreur bien douloureuse! I do do not know what the future of our modern civilization is to be. But I stumble where I firmly trod. I do not think things are going well with us in spite of our railroads and bridges. Among the male sex something is wanting, something tremendous. "The hour of peaceful rest" MY (Theodore Parker to Miss Hunt) BOSTON, Saturday Night, Oct. 31, 1857 Y DEAR LITTLE MITE O' SARAH, away off at Florence, It is All Saints' Eve to-night, and my sermon has been long since ended, the last word added at the end, and I have had a little time to gather up my soul for the coming Sunday. I don't like to rush from a week of hard work into the prayers and hymns of the Sunday without a little breathing time of devotion, so I walk about the study, and hum over bits of hymns, or recall various little tender emotions, and feel the beating of that great Heart of the Universe which warms us all with the life that never dies. I don't know that these are not the richest Prisms and Rainbows hours of my life; certainly they have always been the happiest. An antidote for age (Lydia Maria Child to Mrs. S. B. Shaw. 1868) I READ only "chipper" books. I hang prisms in my windows to fill the room with rainbows; I gaze at all the bright pictures in shop windows; I cultivate the gayest flowers; I seek cheerfulness in every possible way. This is my "necessity in being old." "In the half (From Mrs. Caroline C. Briggs) June 24, 1883 I THINK of you very often, and wish that you could get out more freely into the beautiful world, so full of bloom and fragrance. Perhaps it never seemed to me so full of charm. I think my little trouble, which has shut me out from some other things because I have not been very strong, has left my heart very free for all the beauty of nature. Every morning when I open my eyes to the gladsomeness of it all, when the birds are so joyful, and all is so dewy and fresh, I have a feeling of thanksgiving. The days pass quickly, - not much work done, nor even the desire for it. After dinner a lying off, half undressed, with a book of some sort; late in the afternoon a charming drive with my friend, with dear old Dom, with his patient recognition of all one's moods, and always offering for acceptance the best that is in him in his meek fashion. The whole world is clothed in blossoms and full of song and sweetness; beautiful butterflies, yellow and black, of the richest browns, or black and blue; dragon-flies, bees, chirping crickets, brooks that babble in the meadows or sing softly in the woods; fields all sprinkled with daisies and buttercups; the roadsides a tangle of tenderest green and sweet vines; all and everything in the full tide of beauty; life for all and to spare; the cows and calves; goats with their little kids; stealthy, graceful cats stealing through the grass; blossoming clover, and the pretty spring flowers creeping away till the sight of one is a variety. One is so grateful for it all, so thankful that it comes to them so joyfully, — age, care, pain, and regret banished, so has it come to me, and I have accepted it almost as my right. What do I accomplish for my fellow-creatures? Nothing; yet I am content in a strange way which I don't half understand. It is not quite self-indulgence, but it is like sitting in the twilight with the day's work done, with folded hands, listening to the psalm which is going up from the whole world, and looking at the beautiful vision of earth, sky, and pictured water, all rejoicing in the smile of the eternal. I feel myself in a strange mood, almost like another person, but I do not struggle. While I trust the day will come for me for more and better work, somehow it seems meet to rest now, and I rest and am thankful. . . . The dominant will with (Charles Godfrey Leland to Mrs. Elizabeth Robins I Pennell) HOTEL VICTORIA, FLORENCE, Dec. 11th, 1897 NEVER knew nor heard of any human being who lives so secluded as I do. I am in love absorbed and buried in work. I am, if anything, rather better or stronger than I was a year ago, and keep In Love with Work perfectly well. I attribute this to cultivating the Will, or maintained mental resolution, which has opened to me during the past year a new life. Thus it is really true that, in all my life, I never could write or work so many hours in succession-in fact I never tire, though I work all my waking minutes as now. This is absolutely due to the habit formed of every night resolving and repeating, with all my Will, that I will work con amore all day long tomorrow. I have also found that if we resolve to be vigorous of body and of mind, calm, collected, cheerful, etc., that we can effect marvels, for it is certainly true that after a while the Spirit or will does haunt us unconsciously and marvellously. I have, I believe, half changed my nature under this discipline. I will continually to be free from folly, envy, irritability, and vanity, to forgive and forgetand I have found, by willing and often recurring to it, that, while I am far from being exempt from fault, I have eliminated a vast mass of it from my mind. Such things do not involuntarily occur now without prompt correction, — when they come and I think of old wrongs, troubles, etc., I at once say, “Ah, there you are—begone!" If I had begun this by hypnotizing myself long ago, I should, to judge from recent experience, have attained to the miraculous. I begin to realize in very fact that there are tremendous powers, quite unknown to us, in the mind, and that we can perhaps by long continued steady will awake abilities of which we never dreamed. Thus you can by repetition will yourself to notice hundreds of things which used to escape you, and this soon begins to appear to be miraculous. You must will and think the things over and over as if learning a lesson, saying or rather thinking to yourself intently, "I will that all day to-morrow I shall notice every little thing." And though you forget all about it, it will not forget itself, and it will haunt you, and you will notice all kinds of things. After doing this a dozen times you will have a new faculty awakened. It is certainly true that, as Kant wrote to Hufeland, many diseases can be cured by resolving them away- he thought the gout could be. But it cannot be done all at once- - it needs long and continued effort to bring this to pass with confident faith. I certainly think that I have improved my health by it. . . . 'XV "THE CLOUD ON THE WAY" "After the curfew" IT (Thomas Jefferson to John Adams) MONTICELLO, June 1st, 1822 is very long, my dear Sir, since I have written to you. My dislocated wrist is now become so stiff that I write slowly and with pain, and therefore write as little as I can. Yet it is due to mutual friendship to ask once in a while how we do. The papers tell us that General Stark is off at the age of 93. Charles Thompson still lives at about the same age-cheerful, slender as a grasshopper, and so much without memory that he scarcely recognizes the members of his household. An intimate friend of his called on him not long since; it was difficult to make him recollect who he was, and, sitting one hour, he told him the same story four times over. Is this life "with lab'ring step To tread our former footsteps? pace the round The beaten track?-to see what we have seen, |