^\rethusa Hall 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 ■'-'Hr ^r'^f" 
 
 a Ifiiic !'n,i! 
 
 DDDDTfl74H71 
 
ARETHUSA HALL 
 a jBemorial 
 
Arethusa Hall 
 
 a jHemortal 
 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE FAMILY 
 
 AND EDITED BY 
 
 FRANCIS ELLINGWOOD ABBOT 
 
 ^oyb^y^ 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON 
 2EntbErsttg ^rcss 
 

 v^"^' 
 
 Copyright, 1892, 
 By Francis Ellingwood Abbot. 
 
conte:n^ts. 
 
 Page 
 
 Acrostic to Miss Hall 8 
 
 Autobiography 9 
 
 Extracts from Note-Books and Private Journals .... 75 
 
 Correspondence on Christianity , 87 
 
 Essay on "Home and Social Life" 105 
 
 Foundation of " The Arethusa Hall Lectureship " at 
 
 Akeley Institute . 127 
 
 Eriiiutes from iFrtentisi. 
 
 From John Greenleap Whittier 133 
 
 Theodore D. Weld 134 
 
 Margabet Woods Lawrence . 134 
 
 Frances Hall Beach 142 
 
 Sarah Walter Hallock 146 
 
 Anna Olcott Commelin , 149 
 
 Alice Butler Cary 153 
 
 C. D. Morgan . 154 
 
 Irene A. Woodbridge 154 
 
 Nina Judd 155 
 
 Francis E. AbbOt 155 
 
Acrostic to |$ltss l^all. 
 
 Written by a Young Lady at Brooklyn Heights Seminars 
 
 Mark you that lady who, with gracious air, 
 Instructs tlie young committed to her care ? 
 See how, by Jirmness and benignity, 
 She brings all hearts to oiim her sovereignty. 
 
 Happy indeed are those who travel on, 
 Attaining knowledge with her benison! 
 Love guides her action, duty points the way 
 Long may she live to exercise her sway! 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Northampton, Mass., June 27, 1875. 
 To Mr. Francis E. Abbot : 
 
 You ask me, mj dear friend, to write for you the story of my 
 life. The kindness with wliich you responded to my anxious 
 questionings while I was yet a stranger to you ; the great service 
 you have rendered to me in advancing into the " Liberty and 
 Light " of a religion free from all fetters of creed and superstition, 
 and founded upon what we can learn, through science, of the 
 inmost nature of things, that Eternal Rock, that surest foun- 
 dation, reliance upon which gives the serene trust that, come what 
 may, all is well ; the personal friendship which has been confirmed 
 by being for months admitted into the sanctities of your own 
 family, and sharing in the kindly sympathy, the trustful confi- 
 dence, and all the varying phases of daily life, — all these con- 
 siderations assure me of your sincere interest in what concerns 
 me, and dispose me to impart unreservedly to you the prominent 
 circumstances of my life, from my earliest days till now. This 
 history will give you very little of incident, nothing of romance. 
 Naturally cautious, diffident, and self-distrustful, T have held 
 back from those impulsive actions and bold advances which give 
 strongly contrasted lights and shades to personal history. But, 
 pent up within, they have all been there, — the more intense. 
 
10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 perhaps, from the suppression. This inner life, which is indeed the 
 only true life, it will be well-nigh impossible to portray. And, 
 really, 1 have very little confidence in my power of so drawing the 
 picture that it will be satisfactory to myself as a true transcript, or 
 otherwise than tame to you in its delineations. As I have often 
 told you, although I think you have never been able fully to under- 
 stand it, I feel almost constantly a stricture upon the front brain, 
 a sense of confusion, a sort of paralysis of mental power which 
 prevents the marshalling of ideas which I know I have alive in 
 the background, and incapacitates expression by withholding the 
 power of calling up the right words. With this physical infirmity, 
 added to the natural result of my count of years, the power of 
 memory to retain and recall is greatly weakened. So I find it 
 necessary to exercise all the "grace" and philosophy I can com- 
 mand to be reconciled to, or contend with, my condition. My 
 sketch may be merely a random one, instead of an artistic whole, 
 — a poem, as I should like to make it, if 1 had the power. 
 
 Well, then, to begin. My first breath was inhaled from the 
 pure air of the hills of Norwich, Massachusetts, since called 
 Huntington. This was on the thirteenth of October, 1802. That 
 region is to me a beautiful one. All the towns around are com- 
 posed of hills, thrown up in a variety of forms, often with deep 
 gorges between them. Their elevations afford extensive views. 
 The sun-risings and sun-settings are from distant horizons ; the 
 play of light and shade upon the hill-sides, in varying sunshine 
 and cloud, with the green, quiet vales and hamlets between, 
 together with here and there a rippling brook or larger stream ; 
 bowlders scattered here and there, and rocky ledges cropping out 
 at intervals, — all these features render the landscape impressively 
 picturesque. A purer atmosphere nowhere exists. I always feci 
 its life-giving influence, if breathed only for a day. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 11 
 
 Hither my father, Aaron Hall, came from New Braintree, 
 Mass., somewhere about his fortieth year, and commenced a 
 farmer's life upon a poor, stony, unproductive farm. At the time 
 the War of the Revolution commenced, he was a member of Har- 
 vard College. He enlisted in the army, and served, mostly as 
 quartermaster's clerk, for seven years. We can well understand, 
 in these days, the position of young men who have spent in war 
 some of their best years for preparation for business. My father 
 was paid for his services only in Continental money, from wliich he 
 never realized anything. His father had been a man of property, 
 but, dying at middle age, an elder brother of my father invested 
 it in his own business, and it was all lost to the other heirs. As 
 my father had made some progress in his education, he betook 
 himself to school-keeping, which employment he continued, in 
 different towns in Worcester County, with good success for those 
 days, until the time of his going on to his farm in Norwich. He 
 was known as " Master Hall " in that region, and was warmly 
 greeted by that title in after years whenever he appeared there. 
 At the time of commencing farm life, he had lost his first wife, 
 who left him one infant child, now Mrs. Apphia H. Judd, of this 
 place, and motlier of the late Eev. Sylvester Juddj_ of Augusta, 
 Maine. He had recently married my mother, then less than half 
 his age, who was a daughter of John Richardson, of Templeton, 
 — one of the brave men who fought on Bunker Hill, a hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 Being better educated than most of the men in the compara- 
 tively new town to which he liad gone, my father at different 
 times held the offices of town-clerk, selectman, justice of the 
 peace, and representative to the " General Court " of Boston. He 
 was a man of the most perfect morality in all respects, though not 
 a member of any church until after eighty years of age, and not 
 what was called " pious." His intellect was not above that of the 
 
12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 average of men, but he was always fond of reading, and had for 
 that time and place quite a little collection of books. 
 
 My mother was a woman of superior intellect, but she had had 
 no opportunities for education. She belonged to a strong-minded 
 family, people of native good sense and of clear, intuitive per- 
 ceptions. Her father was a stern freethinker. She learned 
 more from observation and deduction from her own reflections 
 than the most of women derive from the best advantages of the 
 schools. Ardent in her feelings and religious in her nature, in 
 mature life she embraced the Calvinistic religion, — the best 
 known to her. But she was entirely free from superstition, and 
 carried her religion into all the affairs and relations of life. She 
 was highly genial in her nature, was fond of interchange of 
 thought upon the highest themes, was hospitable, benevolent, 
 kind, and patient. She was a woman of remarkable strength of 
 body, of unflagging resolution and untiring activity ; and all 
 these qualities were surely needed for the performance of all the 
 duties that fell to her lot. Besides the care of her nine children, 
 the preparing for them food and clothing, there was, in addition 
 to the usual housework, the making of butter and cheese, the 
 " dipping" of candles, the combing of liax, the spinning and weav- 
 ing of linen, cotton, and woollen, the bleaching of linens, and the 
 dyeing of woollens, — in all which operations she had great skill, 
 and the results of which were of the most satisfactory order. And 
 then, after the day's work had been performed in the most thor- 
 ough and cheerful manner, though lasting often until late in the 
 evening, before going to her rest she would often spend an hour 
 in the quietness of midnight, when all her household were asleep, 
 in prayer, in meditation, or in reading the Bible, Flavel, Bunyan, 
 or such other religious books as she might have. Too soon for 
 those closely connected with her, a fatal disease took her from 
 them in her forty-ninth year. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 13 
 
 Into such a home, amid such domestic circumstances and sur- 
 rounded by all the varying operations of farm-life, was I born. 
 Among my earliest recollections was the going to the country 
 school, about a mile distant, and standing by the side of the good- 
 natured " school-ma'am " and learning my letters from the point 
 of her scissors, which were attached to a chain fastened by a hook 
 to her belt, greatly to my wonder and admiration. There were 
 a wood and a brook near by, where, at recess, I used to go and 
 make cups from leaves, with which to dip up and drink the cool 
 water. There seemed an air of mystery, and something of a sense 
 of the Infinite, in all the new places I visited, away from the 
 immediate home surroundings. One of my enjoyments in going 
 to and from school was to run barefoot (for shoes and stockings 
 were a superfluity in those young days) upon a long stretch of 
 nice level stone wall, which my father had laid with his own 
 hands as fencing for his land, and as the best way of disposing 
 of the great quantity of stones which everywhere abounded. 
 
 With so many children to be cared for, to each one was assigned 
 a portion of the domestic "chores" as early as she was able to 
 perform them. I was the seventh child, all my predecessors being 
 girls, except the second one. Two had died before my advent. 
 The girls, therefore, had to do a good deal of boys' work. Some 
 of my earliest tasks were to pick up the nice large chips from the 
 wood-yard to keep the pot boiling, — there was no wood-sawing in 
 those days. And here I will tell you of the glorious fires my father 
 used to make in winter in the great kitchen fireplace, the glow, 
 warmth, and illumination of which on a cold winter's evening were 
 something splendid and animating to behold. First would come the 
 " back-log," two feet in diameter perhaps ; this was surmounted 
 by two others of gradually diminishing size ; then came the large 
 " fore-stick," with plenty of dry combustibles between it and the 
 " back-log," and above it gradually diminishing sticks, until the 
 
14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 whole was rounded up into a symmetrical artistic whole. And 
 then such grand flames as would roar iip the chimney, and such a 
 rich mass of glowing coals as would come at last ! The old " Ice 
 King" must have done some of his bitterest "weeping" then, as 
 he left " his crystal tears behind." 
 
 Hunting for hen's nests and carrying the eggs in triumph into 
 the house was another favorite employment. The use of the little 
 " quill-wheel " in forming " quills " for the weaving I early acquired, 
 the accomplishment of which was a great and pleasing attainment. 
 The mysteries of bucking and bleaching interested me ; and the 
 sprinkling, with a watering-pot of lye, of long webs of cloth spread 
 out upon the grass was a great pleasure. I think I early had a 
 tendency to look into the nature and causes of things. 
 
 Driving the cows to and from the pasture was one of my early 
 tasks. This sometimes involved searches in distant woody parts, 
 — so far.from home that I used to fear that " bears " or something 
 might catch me before I could return. Later I would go to the 
 pasture, sometimes with salt in my hand as a lure, to " catch the 
 old mare." The good old creature was so gentle that she would 
 come up to me, mounted on a high stone or the fence (for I was 
 not tall enough to reach her head otherwise), and willingly suffer 
 me to capture her with bit and bridle. Then came the great feli- 
 city of getting on to her bare back and riding home ! It required 
 considerable skill to stick on ; and I remember once, when three 
 of us children mounted thus together, that we all slid off on one 
 side in a bunch. The good animal, seeming to appreciate the 
 situation, stood still, waited until we could pick ourselves up, and 
 then suffered us to get on again. Another of my equestrian feats 
 was to be set on a bag of corn laid over the saddle, and ride off to 
 the grist-mill, some mile distant, up and down the steepest of hills, 
 and wait until it was converted into hominy, when the kind old 
 miller would set me on the bag again, and I would make my way 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 15 
 
 home. The water coming in a trougli supported high above the 
 ground, and pouring down upon the great, slow-moving wheel ; the 
 whirl and buzz of the mill-stones ; the misty motion of the flour 
 within the long, cylindrical, slowly-turning net-work of the bolter ; 
 the old miller, whitened all over, moving amid his machinery, 
 and speaking in rather an unfamiliar dialect, — all these things 
 awakened my curiosity, and impressed me with a feeling of wonder 
 and romance. It surprises me now that such a young thing as I 
 then was could have been sent off on such an errand ; and yet 1 
 sometimes question whether the helplessness of children in our 
 present more refined state of civilization is not a far greater dis- 
 advantage to them than the rude experiences of such an early life 
 as mine. I learned self-reliance, observation was quickened, and 
 the idea of activity as the business of life was cherished. 
 
 In the fall — and often so late that my little fingers would tingle 
 with the cold — I helped pick up apples from under the trees 
 of the orchard ; and then it was fun to drive the " old mare " 
 around the circle as she turned the cider-mill, to hear its squeaking 
 sound and that of the crushing of the apples under its ruthless 
 action ; but best of all was the ecstasy of sucking through a straw 
 the sweet juice as it flowed into the great tub from the press. As 
 I look back upon those times, it seems as though it was a wild little 
 savage that I am describing ; and yet there is a fascination about 
 it that makes me love to linger upon and call up these scenes 
 of my childhood with great delight, and I feel that I would not 
 exchange them for any others that I can imagine. There was to 
 me real romance in it all. 
 
 Then, too, there were the "huskings,"- — jubilant times for all 
 concerned ; also the various operations upon the flax as taken from 
 the field, — such as " breaking," " swindling," " hatchelling," etc., 
 — and the threshing of grain. All these I liked to see as I stood 
 by and watched my father's motions ; especially did the " winnow. 
 
16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 ing " process please me, as, raising a half bushel of grain high 
 above his head, he would slowly pour it out in a strong wind, 
 which blew the chaff away, the clear wheat falling in a beautiful 
 curve upon the white sheet laid out for it below. The barn, with 
 all its nooks and corners and hiding-pl-aces, was a favorite resort 
 for play. One great feat was to climb upon the highest beam 
 and jump down into the hay-mow, — greatly at the risk of our 
 necks, it seems to me now. I well remember the sensation, — the 
 shudder in going down, down so far, and the sense of relief on 
 being softly received by the elastic hay. 
 
 As years went on I learned to card tow and spin it, and also to 
 spin cotton and wool, — tasks not unpleasant to me, in which I came 
 to be quite an adept. The spinning of flax on the " little wheel " 
 I never attained to. Sewing my mother taught me to do very 
 neatly. What few books I could get at I liked to read. There 
 was a Bible, of course, which I more than once read through, in 
 my conscientious reverence being particular to read not only the 
 headings of the chapters, but the heads over the separate columns, 
 some of which I remember I did by the job for a number of pages 
 at a time, so as to be sure that nothing was omitted. There was 
 somebody's " Token for Children " that I used to con over and 
 over, showing how good children would be saved, and bad ones 
 would be punished frightfully forever. I think I tried hard to be 
 good ; but 1 often used to keep awake as long as I could, lest my 
 nightly hymn, " If I should die before I wake," should prove true, 
 and I should go to misery. Like Dr. Gannett, I studied " Emer- 
 son's Catechism," and was duly impressed by the illustrating pic- 
 tures at the head of each column. The Sabbath seemed a hallowed 
 day, with its stillness and cessation of business. Our house 
 stood on elevated ground, then came a sort of gorge, and the 
 church stood in full view on an elevation beyond. I recollect how 
 solemnly the sound of the cock-crowings coming through the still 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 17 
 
 air from " meeting-house hill " fell upon my ear of an early Sabbath 
 morning. There was a sort of awe in it as a call to worship such 
 as no bell ever had to me. Carriages there were none. All went 
 to " meeting " on horseback, the father in front, the mother with 
 baby in arms on a pillion behind, and the other children walking 
 after. We used to go barefoot, carrying our stockings and shoes 
 in our hands till we got near the church, and then, putting them 
 on fresh and clean, walk into church, — the reverse process of 
 olden time, when sandals were put off on entering holy ground ; 
 and then to hear the loud, sonorous tones of the great red-faced 
 minister re-echoed through the open windows of summer from a 
 wood in the rear and from the great sounding-board impending 
 over his head, as from Sabbath to Sabbath he rolled out the words, 
 " Say to the south. Give up, and to the north. Keep not back ; 
 bring thy sons from far, and thy daughters from the ends of the 
 earth." The mere sound of this, which certainly impressed me 
 with solemnity, is all that I remember of the ministrations to my 
 childhood, — unless I may add the occasional pastoral visits of the 
 minister, for whom I had sucli fear that I used to run and hide as 
 quickly as possible whenever I saw him coming. Demonstrations 
 of affection, I think, were not common among country people at 
 that time. I do not remember my mother's ever kissing me (she 
 died when I was in my fifteenth year) ; neither do I remember 
 receiving that expression of fondness from my father, or from 
 brother or sister, till well advanced in mature life ; and I do not 
 recollect witnessing anything of the kind in other families. 
 
18 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Life in Westhampton. 
 
 July 4, 1875, — I do not recollect any observance of this anni- 
 versary during my childhood, neitlier of New Year's day. Christ- 
 mas I never heard of until I was quite a large girl ; the name 
 " holiday " was unknown to me. The Puritanical element was in 
 force, and recreation was not recognized. Birthdays were not ob- 
 served ; Thanksgiving was the only festival of the year. 
 
 My oldest sister, Mrs. Judd, was married soon after I entered 
 my ninth year. Her husband, Sylvester Judd, resided in the ad- 
 joining town of Westhampton, and that place became her home- 
 The next year, a child having come to them, and my sister needing 
 help in the care of the baby, — the full complement of my mother's 
 children having been made up, so that I could well be spared from 
 the number at home, — I went to live with this sister. And I 
 may here say that, from this time until after the birth of the seventh 
 of her eight children, my constant home was with her ; and my 
 employment was largely the care of the children, from their ear- 
 liest age to their older years, taking the previous one to wean as 
 a new one was promised. I was fond of the children, and did not 
 feel it a great task, though sometimes my heart failed me at the 
 prospect of a new one to add to my confinement with them. But 
 the care of the children was by no means my only work. My sis- 
 ter kept no " help," and the entire labor of the whole house was 
 done by us two, not even a day's work being hired for sewing or 
 any other purpose ; and in addition to all the rest spinning was 
 often done. Ladies nowadays may well wonder, in their helpless- 
 ness, how it was all accomplished ; but done it was, and well done, 
 the children of the house being kept neat and tidy, and the 
 " ladies " of the house, as a general thing, were ready to sit down 
 neatly dressed in the afternoons. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 19 
 
 Witli all the rest, in my earliest years in Westhampton I went 
 to the public school a portion of the year. But the only thing I 
 learned was how to spell ; this I did well, according to the old Web- 
 ster's Spelling-Book, — reading was mere jabbering, writing was 
 sufficiently rude, and arithmetic of no value. This was all that I 
 had any opportunity for until about fifteen years of age, wl)en a 
 young student of Amherst College came to Westhampton and 
 taught a private school for one quarter. This it was my joy to at- 
 tend, and I believe I acquired more in that three months than the 
 most of young ladies of to-day do in a whole year, — not because 
 our inexperienced, dyspeptic teacher was skilled in his work, but 
 because I applied all my energies to the improvement of such a 
 rare and valuable opportunity. To do so, I had to make great 
 efforts, for all the work of the family must be carried on as usual. 
 I rose early and sat up late to gain time for school and its 
 studies, often helping to carry through the washing in the evening, 
 and hanging out the clothes under the cold midnight stars of win- 
 ter. All too soon, with sorrow and weeping, came the last day of 
 my school. 
 
 But, fortunately, I always had at home an instructor and stimu- 
 lator in the pursuit of knowledge, in the person of my kind and 
 noble brother-in-law. He himself was an untiring student, and 
 had been from his sixteenth year. Having no opportunities for a 
 school education better than those I have described for myself, he 
 was entirely self-taught. By himself alone he had made good 
 proficiency in Latin and French, and some progress in Greek and 
 Spanish. He had made advances in the higher mathematics, had 
 read history quite extensively, and was acquainted with the political 
 conditions of the day. He was highly genial in his nature, had 
 the highest sense of right as applied to each and all, in the kind- 
 liness of his nature was ready to impart to the utmost of whatever 
 he had, was social in disposition, interesting and attractive in con- 
 
20 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 versation, and al)onnding in good humor. To me, little girl as 
 I was when I went into his family, he was as kind as a father, 
 and, as years went on, he became teacher, brother, and almost 
 more than friend to me. He early impressed me with the idea that 
 the cultivation of mind, the acquisition of knowledge, was of more 
 worth than anything else. Though having small returns from a 
 little country store, he invested all he could save from necessary 
 expenses in books, including many of reference, besides those of 
 poetry, history, travel, etc. These he encouraged me to read, and 
 he led me to commence the study of French vs^ith him. So, at 
 intervals in the day-time, when it was my business to keep the 
 baby asleep, I would rock the cradle with my foot, apply my 
 fingers to the knitting of a child's stocking, and, with the book 
 open before me, study my lesson. Winter evenings, prolonged till 
 late, afforded a good deal of time for books ; but my special enjoy- 
 ment was on summer evenings, in my pleasant chamber alone, 
 with no one to interrupt as long as I chose to sit with my books — 
 Milton, Cowper, and Thomson, perhaps — at my little unpainted 
 table, by the light of a tallow-candle. My sister was kind, and as 
 indulgent to me as she could be, and I think I generally performed 
 my duties faithfully to her, though sometimes I stole away for other 
 enjoyments, perhaps, when I should have been aiding her. She 
 was never very strong, and her cares and labors were always so 
 great as to leave her no time or energy for intellectual pursuits, 
 so that, in this department, she could not enjoy that companion- 
 ship with her husband that she might have done under other 
 circumstances. 
 
 The general atmosphere of social life here was more intelligent 
 and refined than that of Norwich. Ministers' sons were more dis- 
 tinguished from otliers in those days than they are now. My 
 brother-in-law's father was the son of the minister of South- 
 ampton, and the "doctor was son of the Rev. Mr. Hooker, of 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 21 
 
 Northampton. Then there was the minister of tlie place, Rev. 
 Enoch Hale, grandfather of E. E. Hale. He and his good lady, 
 together with the other families referred to, did much to elevate 
 the general tone of the people. There was also more communica- 
 tion with Northampton, where resided many families of the old- 
 fashioned aristocracy. A considerable number of young men were 
 educated at college. All these circumstances had their influence 
 upon me, and I felt it to be quite a change from my home in 
 Norwich. . . . 
 
 I pity myself, in looking back through the long vista of my 
 religious history, that I was born into, and so long continued under, 
 the influence of ideas which now seem to me more benighted, and 
 far less conducive to the well-being of humanity, than those of some 
 of the so-called pagan religions. I believe, from my early years, 
 I was imbued with the principles of a simple Natural Religion. I 
 remember, when quite young, receiving impressions of awe and 
 reverence from the various manifestations in nature. Among my 
 readings, after the " Token for Children " age, I chanced upon 
 " The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain," and the simple trust and 
 beautiful spirit of the good old man found a full response in my 
 own heart, and made a deeper and more lasting impression upon 
 me tlian Bible or anything else I remember to have read in my 
 young years. I recall now the glow of harmony and love that 
 permeated my soul, and made me feel at one with the nature of 
 things and with all human beings. Not that I then understood or 
 analyzed my feelings as I do now. But, alas ! then, as almost 
 always, and even to this day, it has not been my good fortune to be 
 in the midst of those who could understand, take interest in, or 
 respond to that which to me is noblest and most highly prized. 
 Could this have been so, my whole life and character would have 
 been greatly modified. Reference to the reading of this little story 
 brings up to me vividly the place. I was alone, on a hot afternoon. 
 
22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 seated under the slope of the roof, in the open, unfinished chamber 
 of the one-story liouse where we children slept, an immense 
 chimney serving to divide it, in a measure, into two parts. Tlie 
 roof was low, and not always in good repair, and often, through its 
 openings, the bright stars of night would peer in upon me ; some- 
 times the rain would trickle down and wet my pillow while I 
 slept ; and of stormy winter mornings I would find, on waking, 
 graceful little piles of snow adorning my coverlet. This was at my 
 father's house in Norwich. 
 
 As I have said, at the time of my unhappy experience in West- 
 hampton my first and most natural impulse was to turn to religion 
 for solace. But I must first " get religion." This, of course, must 
 be a most painful and difficult process. But I was willing to make 
 the sacrifice for the reward. 1 read the Bible, I prayed earnestly 
 for deep " conviction of sin " and a " new heart," — terms the 
 meaning of which I could never fully comprehend. But the 
 greatest " cross I took up " was to go of an afternoon, in broad 
 daylight, to an old people's prayer-meeting, at a considerable dis- 
 tance from my home, where no young people ever went. This was 
 indeed a trial ; but, considering it to be to me one of the appointed 
 " means of grace," it must be done, and I must allow myself to be 
 commented upon as " seeking religion," — a thing, while so highly 
 praiseworthy in some of its aspects, not without its humiliating 
 mortifications. But of no use to me were the dull, stereotyped 
 prayers of the good old men, — very pious in their way and accord- 
 ing to their views, I have no doubt. One expression 1 have always 
 remembered, as having the right ring in it, was, " We thank thee, 
 Lord, that it is as well with us as it is." One, a good old deacon, 
 used to say there was always a time to go to meeting rainy Sab- 
 bath days without getting wet, if people were only disposed to go. 
 He verily believed that " Providence " interfered to this effect. 
 Although I received no help whatever from these meetings, my 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 23 
 
 • 
 
 conscience was satisfied that 1 had done my duty. I said nothing 
 to any one, and no one, I think, suspected what was passing within 
 me. But I continued to agonize and pray and make myself as 
 wretched as I could until nature could no longer bear the strain in 
 tliat direction, and then came the natural reaction, — a sense of 
 relief, even a jubilant state of feeling. All nature seemed to me 
 clothed in new beauty, and my spirit went forth in love and joy 
 towards all. But it was entirely foundationless, the result of 
 emotion merely, with no life-sustaining principle to rest upon. Its 
 continuance was brief, and, like all relapses, the state that followed 
 was worse than the previous one. 
 
 In the mean time my mother had died, and I had become more 
 than ever identified with the family of my sister, Mrs. Judd. 
 Several years passed along, with the same confinement to the care 
 of children and other duties, till about my nineteenth year, when, 
 longing for change, I spent six months in visiting my father's and 
 mother's relations in Templeton, Petersham, Rutland, and other 
 towns in Worcester County. I had scarcely been outside of the 
 towns of Norwich and Westhampton before, and this was a new 
 and pleasant experience, which served in a measure to divert my 
 interests into new channels, though without permanent effects. 
 
 On my return to Westhampton I found my brother-in-law, Mr. 
 Judd, was about to remove his family to Northampton. His busi- 
 ness in Westhampton had been the keeping of a little country 
 store, which, besides being entirely uncongenial to his tastes, 
 scarcely afforded support to his growing family. His brother, 
 Hophni Judd, had been educated at Williams College, and had 
 afterwards established himself in law in Northampton, and, to- 
 gether with Hon. Isaac C. Bates, had become one of the proprietors 
 of the " Hampshire Gazette," — the first established paper in old 
 Hampshire County before its division. Much beloved and regretted, 
 this promising young man (betrothed to a daughter of Judge Hen- 
 
24 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 shaw, afterwards wife of Professor Beck, of Cambridge) was taken 
 from his friends, and my brother Mr. Judd, became proprietor 
 and editor of the paper. 
 
 Life in Northampton. 
 
 The change to this new residence was in 1822. Mr. Judd's 
 position as editor of the " Gazette," a paper to which he gave a 
 higher character than it ever had had before, introduced him and 
 his family to the best society of the town. The old aristocratic 
 culture had not then, as since, been supplanted by a generation 
 whose tastes are rather for business and money-making than for 
 refinement and intellectual development. ... I therefore formed 
 the resolution of fitting myself for a teacher ; but how it was to be 
 done, I could not well see. . . . 
 
 Westfield Academy. 
 
 I at length saw my way clear to gratify my, at that time, high- 
 est ambition, — that of entering Westfield Academy in the autumn 
 of 1823. This was then the best institution of the kind within 
 my reach. But how meagre were its advantages, compared with 
 those of the present day ! The teachers were recent graduates, un- 
 skilled in teaching, and resorting to it only temporarily. But I 
 was only too happy to find myself under an academic roof. I 
 studied to the utmost of my ability, though I did not at all know 
 how to study, and 1 had little or no guidance or help from my 
 teachers. I boarded in a kind and cultivated family ; I formed 
 many pleasant acquaintances with the young gentlemen and ladies 
 of the school. The cultivated society of the town treated the 
 students with great hospitality and attention, and everything com- 
 bined to make time pass happily. A year soon passed, and my 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 25 
 
 funds were exhausted. T must now fall back upon myself, and not 
 only earn ray own support, but repay what I had borrowed. My 
 teachers gave me the best of recommendations, and they with 
 other friends promised all the aid in their power in getting me a 
 situation to teach. But all in vain. The first question asked was, 
 " Has she had experience ? " And the negative of this barred all 
 positions against me. Thus a year and a half passed on. This 
 time was spent most restlessly. I divided it among the families of 
 my married, brothers and sisters, rendering them such services, in 
 various ways, as I was able. I did not return for permanence to 
 my sister, Mrs. Judd. Yet her liouse has ever since been a home 
 to resort to, and to this day is my headquarters. 
 
 Greenland, New Hampshire. 
 
 Here was my first attempt at teaching, in the spring of 1826. 
 An academy was about to be opened under the general supervision 
 of the clergyman of the place, Eev. (Ephraim, I think) Abbot. I 
 well remember my feelings on starting off. It was a great joy to 
 me, after so long waiting, to have a situation open before me. It 
 was before the time of railroads. It seems now as though I was 
 going back to an antediluvian period, and that some other per- 
 son than myself must have been the actor. To get from here 
 to Boston, it was necessary to take the stage at midnight and 
 ride till the next evening. To enter it in the darkness, and 
 become wedged in with unknown people, required no little 
 courage. Then would come the dawning morning light, and 
 the looking around at the dimly nodding heads and the strange 
 faces that had been the night's companions. The long jolting and 
 tossing ride, often with closed curtains and the accompaniment of 
 stage-sickness, was wearisome, and sometimes almost insupport- 
 able, though sometimes agreeable company would be fallen in with, 
 
 4 
 
26 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 which would relieve the tedium of the journey. An instance of 
 this kind occurred on my way from Boston to Portsmouth. Hon. 
 Ichabod Bartlett, member of Congress from New Hampshire, was 
 on his way from Washington to his home in Portsmouth. There 
 he boarded at the same house with my friend from Westhampton 
 who had procured for me the place at Greenland. Finding I was 
 destined to the same house with himself, and that we had a friend 
 in common, Mr. Bartlett took me under his protection ; and as my 
 friend happened to be out of town on my arrival, he took a car- 
 riage and drove me out to Greenland to the house of Mr. Abbot, 
 where I was to board. On his return he very much amused my 
 friend by describing the reception I met with. Mrs. Abbot was a 
 well-educated lady, but of the most icy manners of any person I 
 ever met with. She knew who I was, and I was expected ; but, as. 
 Mr. Bartlett described it, she appeared at the door herself, but 
 opened it only on a crack, as it were, and it was rather by pushing 
 and crowding that he got an entrance for me. As may well be 
 supposed, I felt desolate indeed on being left a stranger under 
 these circumstances. The next day or two, my two Portsmouth 
 friends drove out to see how I survived the rudeness of the first 
 encounter. 
 
 I was quite reassured when I came to see Mr. Abbot, who was 
 an unusually kind and fatherly man, an entire contrast in manners 
 to his wife. Tlie natural scenery of the place was pleasant, the 
 air seemed salubrious, and I entered upon my duties in the new 
 institution with enthusiasm. But I soon painfully found how im- 
 perfect were my qualifications. To supply my deficiencies, I 
 studied by myself out of school to prepare to meet my classes, — a 
 course I pursued through all my teaching. I believe I went through 
 my engagement quite respectably, but, for various reasons, it was 
 not renewed for the next year. But I had had experience^ and 
 from that time, through the whole of my teaching, I never had 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 27 
 
 occasion to apply for a situation, but applications came to me, 
 more than I could attend to. I was fairly launched on my career 
 as a teacher. 
 
 Portsmouth. 
 
 On leaving Greenland I went to Portsmouth, where I had occa- 
 sionally visited, intending to start from there for home. But my 
 friend, who was at the head of a large school of young ladies, per- 
 suaded me to remain there, and prepare myself for teaching French 
 by taking lessons of the accomplished French teacher of his school. 
 
 This was a delightful change to me. I had the good fortune to 
 board in one of the best old families in the city, that of Nathaniel 
 Adams, Esq. This had always been a most hospitable mansion, — 
 " the house appointed for all living," as some one facetiousl} 
 applied the passage of " Holy Writ." Mr. Adams was rather old 
 and infirm, and had become reduced in property. For many years 
 he had been clerk of the courts for the State. He was a man of taste 
 and literary culture, was witty, gallant, and fond of society. In 
 Portsmouth, at that time, there was a fine circle of cultivated people 
 of the old-school manners and way of life. Mr. Adams had been 
 in the habit of entertaining members of the Bar at his house, among 
 whom was Daniel Webster. His wife, Grace, visited there when I 
 was in the family. I remember Mr. Adams, in his gallant way, 
 complimenting her, as they walked in the garden, with those lines 
 of Milton descriptive of Eve : — 
 
 " Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye. 
 In every gesture dignity and love." 
 
 General Scott and his wife, in the prime of their elegance of person 
 and manner, I once dined with at General Upham's, a relative of 
 the family, who entertained many military and naval officers. 
 Jeremiah Mason, Dr. Burroughs, of the Episcopal Chufch, and Dr. 
 
28 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Parker, of the Unitarian Church, the British consul, and many 
 other people of the like class, I met. This refinement and cultiva- 
 tion was quite congenial to my tastes and aspirations. . . . 
 The ladies of the family were Mrs. Adams and three interesting 
 daughters. They had never had a boarder before, but Mrs, Adams 
 was originally from Hatfield, and she knew a good deal about 
 Northampton, and for that reason they were induced to receive me. 
 They took me into the bosom of their family as one of themselves, 
 and showed me great kindness every way. With Mr. Adams I was 
 rather a pet, as in his infirm condition he was glad to derive enter- 
 tainment from any source. It was a new life to me, and a most 
 happy one, affording me facilities for development in a way that I 
 needed. I wondered at their generosity in treating with so much 
 attention one so awkward and so little accustomed to the amenities 
 of polite society as I was. My warm fi^iendship with the family 
 was never interrupted, but continued through their lives. It is 
 many years now since they all passed away. Mr. Adams was one 
 of the pillars in Dr. Burroughs' church, and a most thorough 
 Episcopalian, The church then was of the high English order. The 
 service was all new to me. I chose to go with the family, and Mr, 
 Adams took great pains to instruct me in the significance of the 
 forms and ceremonies of the Church, — with him " The Church" 
 -par eminence. I came to enjoy the services highly. The prayers 
 seemed grand and appropriate, in comparison with the extempo- 
 raneous and incoherent utterances I had been accustomed to, and 
 the assthetic elements were attractive. In place of the severity of 
 Calvinistic dogma, I found more practical morality, not only in the 
 church services, but in the daily intercourse of life. I have never 
 to this day quite lost a susceptibility to the devotional influences I 
 received from their ritual and ceremonies, and I sometimes now 
 like to give myself up with perfect abandonment to the service of 
 a Catholic church, where all the elements of the kind are carried 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 29 
 
 out in their fullest perfection. What is this tendency to bow down 
 in worship and adoration of the Unknown ? Is it merely from ig- 
 norance and superstition ? Is it, or not, a necessary element 
 entering into the idea of religion ? 
 
 Haverhill. 
 
 I remained in Portsmouth until the spring of 1827, when I ac- 
 cepted an invitation to take charge of the female department of an 
 academy in Haverhill, Mass., which was at that time first opened. 
 I boarded in the family of Mrs. Atwood, the mother of one of the 
 first missionaries to India, Mrs. Harriet Newell, whose " Memoirs " 
 I had read with great admiration, and whose enthusiasm and self- 
 consecration had excited in me a like zeal to devote myself to the 
 sacred work of converting the heathen of foreign lands. The place 
 where she was born, where she had lived, and from which she liad 
 gone forth to die, a martyr to her devotion to the cause of Christ, 
 seemed to me almost holy ground. Mrs. Atwood and the two 
 daughters who were with her were lovely in character, cultivated in 
 intellect, and refined in taste and manners. The house was a place 
 of resort for Andover theological students, a sort of ministers' 
 home. Another young lady of the family was Miss Catherine Hills, 
 of Bangor, who became the most dearly loved friend I ever had. 
 She was beautiful in person, her mind was of a superior order, 
 and she had great powers of conversation and was highly enter- 
 taining by her ready wit, as well as her seriousness and good sense. 
 The moral elements of her character were of the most elevated 
 order. Conscientious and truthful in the highest degree, she pos- 
 sessed that rare ingenuousness which made her fair alike to the ex- 
 cellencies and defects of her own character, as well as to those of 
 others. Her discrimination was clear, and she was free from pre- 
 judices. She would be sure to discover, and give all due credit to. 
 
30 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the good in those whose bad qualities rendered them justly repre- 
 hensible. Her nature was rationally religious, but she had been 
 educated in the severity of Calvinism, and her struggles against 
 nature to become what that required of her were truly pathetic. 
 As a friend, she made the interests of her friends her own, and, in 
 her large-heartedness, she was not limited to one or two alone, but 
 took in a large number, each of whom, in her breadth of compre- 
 hension, she could understand and have close fellowship with. 
 Her sympathy was of the deepest, tenderest nature, often revealing 
 itself in tones so melting as to call forth unbidden tears. She was 
 ever constant, ever ready to respond to the advances of others, 
 would even meet them more than half way. And yet, with all this 
 abounding tenderness and sympathy, there was mingled no weak- 
 ness. She was always firm and strong, even in intricacies and 
 trials that penetrated to her very heart's core. From the time I 
 first knew her, I had her entire trust and confidence, and there 
 never came between us the least shade to darken our friendship. 
 
 The year after we first met, she was married to Bev. John 
 Crosby, a man of a lovely nature, something after the Potter 
 pattern, who settled in Castine, Me. In time, a precious boy was 
 born to them, who drew from the depths of the mother's heart all 
 that devoted love which might be expected from a nature like 
 hers. I spent a winter most delightfully with them in Castine 
 while this child was an infant. But sorrow soon came to them. 
 Mr. Crosby's health failed, and they went to Barbadoes for the 
 benefit of milder air, where he died in May, 1833. The lives of 
 the two had been one in love and in interest from their earliest 
 years, and this separation was like dividing soul from body. My 
 friend had inherited consumptive tendencies, and the disease 
 now claimed her for its prey. Alone, desolate, and obliged to 
 seek warmer air every winter, through the entire devotion of 
 one who had been an admiring friend of herself and husband. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 31 
 
 togetlier with the urgency of some friends, she was induced to 
 marry again. But all means for the recovery of health proved 
 unavailing. January, 1837, was the last of earth for her. It 
 was my privilege and joy to be at her bedside the last three 
 months of her life, and to i^eceive her last breath. Tender and 
 firm, loving and great-souled was she, to the last moment. Her 
 imagination, which was always active and vivid, dwelling upon 
 what she had been led to receive as the truths of religion, ren- 
 dered her death triumphant. The invisible to other eyes seemed 
 open to hers, and, the glories of a spiritual state of existence seem- 
 ing to beckon her on, she entered it with joy. 
 
 But does not Free Religion require a higher faith even than 
 this, — an entire self-abnegation, a trustful committal to the bosom 
 of the Infinite, a belief that, let what may follow the last con- 
 scious thought in the body, the order of the Universal in Nature 
 is perfect, and all is well? 
 
 I cannot describe the sense of bereavement, of desolation, that 
 attended me for months, and even years. There are in woman's 
 nature, when fully developed, certain masculine elements, as into 
 the highest type of man there must enter the feminine. It seems 
 to me that in the ideal perfect man and perfect woman there 
 must be the same elements, only in different combinations and 
 proportions. But we do not often find such instances, and woman 
 generally has to seek entirely in man what is wanting in her own 
 sex, and the same with man. I have never known a woman in 
 whom the two elements were so harmoniously and beautifully 
 blended as in my Catherine. With her, I could be well-nigh 
 satisfied without that love which grows out of the higher elements 
 of man's nature. And so, in losing her, I was doubly thrown 
 back into the isolation of my own soul. 
 
 I will finish this episode by saying how widely separated were 
 the graves of those once so closely united. Barbadoes liolds the 
 
32 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 dust of my valued friend Mr. Crosby, Bangor that of my dear 
 Catherine ; Mr. Chamberlain, the second husband, was drowned 
 in the Danube and buried upon its banks a year or two after 
 the death of his wife ; the precious boy, while yet young, found 
 his grave on the shores of Hindostan, whither he had sailed for 
 health, and a daughter of the second marriage, in her young years 
 a prey to her mother's fatal disease, found her final resting-place 
 in Vermont. And thus, in a comparatively brief period, passed 
 away every vestige of that circle that had filled so large a place in 
 my heart. 
 
 But to go back to my life in Haverhill. 
 
 New York, Feb. 13, 1876. — For six months of two years I had 
 charge of the female department of the academy, this depart- 
 ment being closed in winter. The first year was one of constant 
 delight to me. The family I was in, with all its associations and 
 the visitors drawn to it, together with the hospitable society of the 
 town, was most pleasant to me. 1 was in daily and most intimate 
 intercourse with my dear new-found friend. The young gentle- 
 man who had charge of the male department of the academy was 
 kind and agreeable, the school was pleasant, and my teachings 
 and influence seemed satisfactory to the founders of this new 
 institution. Pleasant parties were frequent. Often, in company 
 with my associate i]i teaching, I had the most charming horseback 
 rides, on a little white horse whose motions were almost as gentle 
 as those of a rocking-chair, over hills, around ponds, and crossing 
 rivers, — the whole constituting a picturesque panorama. And 
 so, like one long, beautiful summer's day, passed the first period 
 of six months. The following winter I passed with my relatives 
 in Northampton and its vicinity. 
 
 The next spring, that of 1828, came. I returned to the scene 
 of my former enjoyments, but all was changed. My dear friend 
 Catherine had returned to her home in Bangor, and in the course 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 33 
 
 of the summer was married, and entered upon the duties of a 
 minister's wife in Castine. The two daughters of Mrs. Atwood 
 were married, and, with their mother, left the place, so that my 
 pleasant home there, with all the interesting people which it 
 attracted, was broken up. Some other things conspired to make 
 my situation quite uncomfortable. Yet I labored on as best I 
 could, under a great weight of depression, until the close of the 
 session, engaging to return the next spring. 
 
 Boston. 
 
 Mr. Eobert Willis, whose wife was a daughter of Mrs. Atwood, 
 and who resided in Sudbury Street, Boston, invited me to make 
 my home in his family the succeeding winter, and give private 
 instruction to his daughter, now Mrs. George Washington Warren, 
 of Boston. This invitation I accepted, and it resulted in my hav- 
 ing a little school of girls through the winter. My time passed 
 very pleasantly. Mrs. Willis was one of the kindest and most 
 amiable of women, possessing a good degree of literary culture, 
 as well as being one of the nicest of housekeepers. Mr. Willis 
 was a man of exceedingly crude manners and an avowed infidel, 
 — a terrible thing for those days. But he had a penetrating mind, 
 a very kind heart, and the highest moral integrity. This was the 
 time when Dr. Beecher was at his height of popularity in Boston. 
 We all attended his church, Mr. Willis not believing a word 
 of his doctrines, but, as he said, enjoying his arguments and 
 logic. And how the Doctor did thunder and pound away, lift- 
 ing up his glasses and putting them down again every other min- 
 ute ! A prominent object of attack that winter was the theatre. 
 I remember liis saying at one time, when the price of admission 
 had been reduced : " Now the way to hell is cheap, you can go 
 at half-price ! " His preaching had very little effect upon me, save 
 
 6 
 
34 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 that of a pleasant entertainment ; though in one instance, at a 
 communion season, I was shocked by seeing him stand, with the 
 cup held high in hand, and hearing him call out in stentorian 
 tones, '■'• Blood ! blood! shed for you!'''' But still I was so much 
 fettered by a sense of duty to Calvinistic ideas that I steadfastly 
 refused Mr. Willis's urgent invitations to go to the theatre with 
 him, although dramatic performances were always in a high degree 
 attractive to me. This was a pastime that Mr. Willis often 
 indulged in alone by himself, as his wife and daughter did not 
 think it right to accompany him. And yet his wife was most 
 scrupulously attentive to his comfort and happiness in every way, 
 while he often said jocosely that, as " she thought he would have 
 no happiness but in this world, she would do all she could for 
 him here." 
 
 Saco, Maine. 
 
 While in Boston I had an application to take charge of a school 
 for young ladies in Saco. Although I had engaged to return to 
 Haverhill, there were some reasons why I preferred not to be there 
 again. I therefore asked and obtained a release from my engage- 
 ment, and commenced my school in Saco in the spring of 1829. 
 Here I found very little that was congenial in the way of society ; 
 but the school was a pleasant one. 
 
 Thrown upon myself and my own resources, feeling alone, and 
 from a variety of causes greatly depressed in spirits, I again turned 
 to " religion " for help. I set about writing a journal, by means 
 of which I endeavored to anatomize my heart, — to search out its 
 sinfulness, and by agonizing effort to obtain the peace and rest of 
 the true " Christian." Many and many are the earnest prayers 
 recorded. The great difficulty was to attain to that feeling to- 
 wards "the Saviour" which was considered necessary. I never 
 did get it. Whether from having it dinned in my ears from the 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 35 
 
 earliest times, so that I became obtuse to the influence, or not, I do 
 not know ; but I must say that to this day I never have had that 
 admiration and reverence for Jesus that I have had for Buddha, 
 Socrates, and some persons even of the present day. But I was at 
 length able to satisfy the scruples of my own mind and the require- 
 ments of the church so far as to be received into its communion. 
 My public profession of " faith and covenant " before " God, angels, 
 and men," as the phraseology ran, was in January, 1830. The eat- 
 ing of the bread and drinking of the wine was a great disappoint- 
 ment to me. I had expected an undefinable mystical effect, and the 
 sensation of the bread between my teeth was anything but spiritual. 
 However, I had committed myself, and 1 endeavored to live up 
 most faithfully to the requirements of my profession. In one point 
 which now occurs to me I failed, in the estimation of some of the 
 members of the church, and that was in attending the ordination 
 of the minister of the Unitarian Church ; it was in a measure in- 
 dorsing the dangerous sentiments of the sect, and setting a bad 
 example ! A part of that winter I spent with my friends the 
 Crosbys in Castine. Mr. Crosby's orthodoxy was of a much milder 
 type, and his own nature was so beautiful as to do away with any 
 severe elements of his creed. On returning to Saco I boarded in 
 the family of the minister, and improved the opportunity his 
 library afforded in reading up "Bodies of Divinity." I went 
 through with Dwight's " Theology," Edwards " On Redemption " 
 and " On the Will," etc., and followed up the controversy that was 
 then going on between "Taylorism" and " Tylorism," in which 
 Drs. Woods, Stuart, and other prominent theologians took part. 
 In n:iy early days in Westhampton I had read with fear and trem- 
 bling Stoddard " On Judgment," Baxter's " Call to the Uncon- 
 verted " and " Saints' Rest," several volumes of sermons, and 
 Law's " Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life," etc. The emo- 
 tional and mystical character of this last work I found much more 
 
36 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 congenial with my natural instincts tlian the fearful appeals of the 
 others. I could readily yield to the attractive force of love, while 
 threats and appeals to fear were rather lost upon me. Feeling it 
 my duty to read the Bible, to pray in my school, and to make 
 efforts for the religious improvement of my pupils, I did so. I 
 think I went very much upon the principle of trying " to perfect 
 myself." The doctrines and the religious observances were very 
 little to me, though I endeavored to keep in the traces, supposing 
 no other religion to be the true one than that in which I had been 
 educated ; and I really attained to great peace of spirit. The right 
 and the good seemed to me beautiful for its own sake, although 
 among my Christian friends it was considered heterodox to affirm 
 that " holiness " could be loved for its own sake, since the heart 
 of man naturally loved evil best ; but I came to have such faith in 
 the Divine order of things that I became completely optimistic, and 
 almost indifferent as to what came, believing all to be for the best. 
 The attraction of the right seemed to me so all-controlling that I 
 could not conceive how any one having a clear perception of it 
 could be even tempted to the wrong. In this experience lies per- 
 haps the foundation of my theory, that what is called sin is igno- 
 rance, short-sightedness ; that with a clear vision, at the moment of 
 the act of evil, of its destructive, suicidal character in the natu?'e of 
 things irrevocably established, it would be impossible to do the 
 wrong. The perception may be just before the final act, but at the 
 moment there is illusion, there is insanity, and the evil is conceived 
 as good ; so that the safeguards lie in watching and controlling 
 the incipient stages. There is where lies the power, and there is 
 where lies the guilt, provided the danger is seen and known. 
 
 With an interval of the winter months, I continued my scliool 
 in Saco until the close of 1831. On taking a journey in tlie stage 
 the previous spring, when the roads were in an exceedingly bad 
 state, by the violent pitching of the carriage I received an injury, 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 37 
 
 from the latent effects of which, as I believe, I was prostrated for 
 several weeks ; the results upon my health and nervous system 
 were most seriously felt for a dozen or more years, and indeed its 
 undermining influence on my naturally strong constitution has 
 never been recovered from. After this time I was never able to 
 go on with teaching continuously until the beginning of 1849, 
 when I became connected with schools in Brooklyn, N. Y. But 
 constantly feeling the necessity of providing for my own wants, 
 after seasons of rest for a year or so among my friends, weak and 
 unfit as I was, I would answer to some call, and for a year or two 
 take the responsibility of some academy for young ladies, and con- 
 tinue as long as, and even longer than, my strength would hold 
 out ; for during this whole period I was too unwell to take any 
 charge upon myself, and, in a condition in which most persons 
 would have been in bed, requiring attendance, I kept up, and went 
 on simply by power of will. The result of my condition was that I 
 was obliged to make many changes and to reside for a limited 
 time in a variety of places, but always in the New England States, 
 and always having charge of a department of young ladies. With- 
 out going into all the details of this long, miserable period, I will 
 note some of its most prominent incidents and circumstances. 
 As a whole, it may be characterized as a sort of death-in-life 
 period, — physical strength refusing to sustain moral and intellec- 
 tual aspiration, the power of will, once so strong, almost obliter- 
 ated, a depression of spirits, a sense of desolation and aloneness, 
 brooding like an incubus over my whole being. How I survived 
 it is more than I can how well comprehend. If it were now in 
 prospect, I don't see how I could have the courage to live. And 
 yet there were now and then some bright and pleasant features of 
 my experience ; and there was a very slow but gradual develop- 
 ment of my nature towards more enlightened views and higher 
 aims. There was this gain, at least, that I learned to sympathize 
 
38 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 in the very depths of suffering of body, mind, and heart, and to 
 have an understanding sense of the pangs and struggles endured 
 and encountered by others ; and I have often felt that, for the sake 
 of this power which brought me more into kinship witli liumanity 
 and attracted me to the alleviation of the griefs of others, I would 
 willingly endure all I had suffered. And so the law of compensa- 
 tion seems beautiful in its adjustments. 
 
 1832-1840. 
 
 In 1833 I had charge of an academy at Newton Centre, since 
 become a public school, I believe. The clergyman who had mar- 
 ried one of the Atwoods was settled there, and it was pleasant to 
 be near his family. My deeply afflicted friend Catherine, whose 
 husband died in Barbadoes in May of this year, made me a visit 
 there. It was the joy of grief to have her with me. The care of 
 girls, day and night, in a boarding-house, together with instruction 
 six hours a day, was more than I could sustain for a longer time 
 than six months. 
 
 In Westhampton, the home of my girlhood, in which I had re- 
 latives, and with which I always kept up connections, was a clergy- 
 man and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Chapin, who were very good friends 
 of mine. He was a man of most genial and imaginative nature, 
 and he wrote some fine poetry of quite a unique character. Con- 
 trary to all his natural instincts for fun, and wide latitude in con- 
 versation and action, he was most rigidly Orthodox in his faith. . . . 
 I often spent weeks at their house, and for some months, in 1834, 
 at their request, made my home with them, and gave instruction 
 to a school of young ladies gathered from their parish. 
 
 The female department of Uxbridge Academy, together with 
 the boarding-house, I had in charge, with the exception of the 
 winter months, during 1835 and 1836. I had two pleasant ladies 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 39 
 
 associated with me, and the two gentlemen at the head of the 
 youno- men's department were very agreeable in every way. 
 Charles C. Jewett, the principal, afterwards professor in Brown 
 University, assistant librarian in the Smithsonian Institution, and 
 finally Superintendent of the Public Library, Boston, had recently 
 graduated, at about the age of eighteen. He was one of those pre- 
 cocious, mature persons who are rarely met with. While yet so 
 young, there seemed to be hardly any subject on which he had not 
 some information. We ladies used to apply to him the couplet : 
 
 " And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
 That one small head could carry all he knew." 
 
 His kindliness and friendliness was not exceeded by his intelli- 
 gence, and up to the time of his sudden and lamented death, some 
 half a dozen years since, I always found him, though I might not 
 have seen him or heard from him for years, the same kind, genial 
 friend, as though it were but a yesterday that we parted. There 
 seemed to be no limit to his knowledge of books, and I believe his 
 system of cataloguing libraries has been highly esteemed. 
 
 While in Uxbridge I committed the great folly, in addition to 
 all my necessary cares and duties, and the necessity of making 
 much preparation privately for my instructions in school (always 
 six hours a day), of giving private lessons in French to these two 
 young gentlemen and a few others, forming a class, and, in return 
 from Mr. Jewett, commencing the study of Latin. My brain had 
 not yet felt the general debility of my physical system ; but under 
 so great a pressure it gave way, consciously, at a certain midnight 
 hour, after long-concentrated attention to a given subject. It was a 
 sin of ignorance, for I had never had my attention called to the 
 science of physiology or to the laws of health, and I had no idea 
 that there was any limit to my power of application. But the conse- 
 quences were none the less fatal. It amounted almost to a paraly- 
 
40 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 sis of the brain, and for a year or two after this I could not so 
 much as look into a newspaper without pain, and to have it sug- 
 gested to me to read a hook was almost agonizing. After feeling 
 obliged to yield to this incapacity for a long time, I came to the 
 conclusion that I should never again be able to use my mind if I 
 did not force upon it some application ; and so, little by little, by 
 dint of perseverance, I began slowly to recuperate. But never, to 
 this day, have I recovered from the injury, although, for the last 
 year or two, I have been rather more in my normal condition. . . . 
 Taking it all in all, no human being has any conception of what I 
 have suffered from weakness of body, from a crippled state of 
 mind, and from a condition of nerves stung to the quick by antag- 
 onism, by unkindness, and by the evidence of unsympathetic con- 
 sideration and of unjust judgments. All this experience has tended 
 to draw forth my sympathy for others, — suffering in what way 
 they may, — has led me to put myself in their position, and to look 
 forth from their standpoint. 
 
 My autumn vacation of 1836 I spent with my friend Catherine 
 at Castine. She was then very feeble, her fatal disease, which was 
 constitutional with her family, and had been overhanging her for 
 years^ having left little hope of recovery. But, as was remarked 
 by another visitor, her sick chamber was the most lively and 
 attractive room in the house. All the elements of her nature rayed 
 forth in as much beauty as ever. The only thing to mar the 
 delight of my visit was the sad foreshadowing of the loss which 
 seemed impending. 
 
 And now, by this date, my dear friend, — ^^if I may imagine that 
 in this history you are still listening to me, — I am reminded 
 how long my life had been before yours began. I believe I felt 
 older then than I do now. I don't know how it is, but I have for 
 a long time been more attracted to the generations below me than 
 to those of my own time. My tendency, I believe, is to keep up 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 41 
 
 with the age, if not to go before it, while with most of my con- 
 temporaries it seems to be to stand still, if not to fall back. I see 
 no reason why the soul need grow old ; and feeling as I do the 
 youth of my spirit, with all its sensibilities and susceptibilities, 1 
 wonder, as I look in the glass, that its material clothing should 
 have such marks of age. It does not seem as though the two 
 belonged in companionship. Is there a life beyond this, of peren- 
 nial youth, keeping pace with eternal progress ? In one sense, 
 my life seems as but begun, and the history I am writing seems to 
 belong to another person. What advents and exits upon this 
 planet ! Your star arose as Catherine's set. 
 
 In or about December of the same year, my school having closed 
 for the season, at the urgent request of my friend I returned to 
 her, and did not leave her bedside, day or night, till the last mo- 
 ment came, which was on the 28th of the following January. Her 
 mind was strong and clear, her natural playfulness of expression 
 showing itself in the midst of suffering, her resignation, faith, and 
 trust illuminating the unknown upon which she was entering. 
 Indeed, the teachings of her faith and the vividness of her imagin- 
 ation converted into tangible realities what lay behind the veil, and 
 she passed in triumph from this visible state of being. 
 
 After passing some weeks in Bangor, where the funeral rites 
 were performed, I returned to Northampton and spent the rest 
 of the year in that place and the vicinity, among my family 
 friends. . . . 
 
 This year was one of great trial to me. In my broken state of 
 health this loss of the friend who had been so much to me during 
 the previous ten years was exceedingly depressing. Then, in addi- 
 tion to this, was the altogether unlooked-for revelation of Sylvester 
 Judd's change of religious views from Orthodoxy to Unitarianism. 
 At that time, among the staid people of Hampshire County, it was 
 almost like a change of caste among the Hindoos. I verily think 
 
 6 
 
42 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the avowal of infidelity to Orthodox friends, at the present time, 
 is not regarded with anything of the horror that Unitarianism was 
 at that time. And does not this give evidence of encouraging signs 
 of progress in the race ? Sylvester had been particularly interesting 
 and dear to me from his earliest years, when I used to tend him 
 as a baby. There was an originality, a quickness of perception, a 
 facility of acquisition, and an indication of reserved power, which, 
 added to a loveliness of nature, especially attracted me to him. 
 And now that he had struggled through the difficulties of his col- 
 lege course, and was about to enter upon the sacred work of the 
 Gospel ministry, all our expections were to be blasted ! I felt 
 that I would rather see him dead, so much was I dominated by 
 traditional theology. 
 
 At the same time, my deepest sympathies were called forth for 
 him. His sufferings from all the painful circumstances attending 
 this religious crisis were far greater than those of his friends. But 
 convictions of truth and duty were not to be sacrificed to any other 
 considerations. In a paper written for his friends, which he la- 
 belled " My Cardiagraphy," he set forth in such a clear and pathe- 
 tic manner the process of change in his views, the pain it had cost 
 him to disappoint his friends, and the heartfelt tenderness and love 
 he bore them, that my opposition to the change was quite disarmed, 
 and I began to see that Unitarian ideas, of which I had had no 
 knowledge before, were, in many respects, consonant with my na- 
 tural instincts. This writing of his was followed by another, which 
 was published in tract form by the Unitarian Association, giving a 
 fuller account of his " Conversion from Calvinism," and serving to 
 initiate rae further into liberal views. Through him I began to 
 have access to books of a different character from any I had read, 
 such as Channing's and Emerson's. In this way, and by means of 
 his preaching, on which I frequently attended after he was settled in 
 Augusta, the enlightening and liberalizing process commenced in 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 43 
 
 my mind ; though I was often warned by friends, among them the 
 good, fatherly Dr. Woods of Andover, to guard against being led 
 away from the truth by my sympathies and affections. I remem- 
 ber Dr. Storrs, senior, of Braintree, endeavored to repress my ad- 
 miration of Socrates, on the ground that it encroached too much 
 upon the claims of Jesus. A distressing conflict arose in my mind 
 as to what is the truth. Men of great learning differed, and who 
 should say what was right ? Miserable years were several at this 
 period, entire nervous prostration rendering me incapable of clear 
 vision or decisive judgment. I kept mainly on the Orthodox side, 
 fearing to depart from it, and thinking it the safer. 
 
 The year 1838 I spent in Hartford, in the family of James W. 
 Judd, my sister's oldest son 
 
 In the spring of 1839 I was requested by Miss Grant to take 
 charge of her famous school in Ipswich, which she was about to 
 leave. I started to go ; but after going on my journey, by stage, 
 about ten miles, I found myself so ill that I was obliged to stop, 
 and finally to give up the undertaking. A similar project I was 
 forced to abandon the year previous for the same reason. With my 
 desire for activity, and the pecuniary need of it, these were trials 
 almost too great to bear, and my depression of spirits was much of 
 the time insupportable. 
 
 lu May of this year I went to Andover, and made a visit of a 
 month to my friend Margarette Woods, with whom I had become 
 acquainted the year before through my friends the Chapins. She 
 was on the eve of her marriage to Rev. E. A. Lawrence, and I stayed 
 with her till the ceremony was performed. This opened to me 
 quite a new field for acquaintance and observation. The theology of 
 the Seminary at this time was not so severe as I had supposed. Dr. 
 Woods was lenient in his charity. Professor Stuart was supposed to 
 concede too much to liberal criticism, and Professor Park was con- 
 sidered somewhat off the true path. Mr. Jewett's paper, however, 
 
44 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 at the close of his theological course, setting forth some claims for 
 the Koran, could not be read without some erasures and modifi- 
 cations. Leonard Woods, junior, was at home and in the height 
 of his fine intellectual culture and popularity as a finished speaker. 
 Louisa S. Payson, daughter of the celebrated Dr. Payson of Port- 
 land, and afterwards wife of Professor Hopkins of Williamstown, was 
 an intimate friend of Margarette, and was in Andover several weeks. 
 She was at that time distinguished for rare scholarship, though at 
 the present time very many ladies are her equals, if not her supe- 
 riors, in this respect. A very noted progress in the education, ac- 
 quirements, and literary ability of women has been made since that 
 time. Then there was only here and there a solitary instance of 
 a lady acquainted with the German language, while now almost 
 every school-girl studies it. About this period Carlyle's writings 
 began to be known here, and. they became a great stimulus to the 
 acquisition of knowledge of the German language and literature. 
 All persons of much cultivation were eagerly leading Cai'lyle, and 
 he undoubtedly had great influence in arousing thought and enlarg- 
 ing and liberalizing sentiment, — ■ greater power, I should say, than 
 any other man of that day. I read him with the greatest interest ; 
 he opened to me a new world of ideas. 
 
 But my visit here was terribly marred by the impaired state of my 
 brain. The consciousness that I could not command my intellectual 
 power, or do justice to what I considered my best self, was exceed- 
 ingly mortifying. But there was this one offset, that I could receive 
 valuable impressions, though I had not the power of reproducing 
 them. In a " record " made at this time I find the following : " There 
 is nothing to me. The mind and power of thought I once had are 
 gone. I am ignorant of everything and deficient in everything, — 
 2, fool, Qifool! Oh, I am ashamed of my weakness, — I almost hate 
 myself. What shall I do ? What shall I do? All is silent. 
 I hear no response. I have neglected to draw near to God, and 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 45 
 
 he has withdrawn from me. I feel very little interest in any- 
 thing, almost doubt whether I can ever again feel strong emotion. 
 I have no one on earth to whom I can perfectly pour forth my soul, 
 — cannot expose weakness only to excite pity, perliaps con- 
 tempt. And then my long-established habit of locking up all my 
 deepest feelings in ray own heart, — how bad it has been for me ! 
 I impart sympathy, but receive very little in return. The reason 
 is plain. I do not open my heart. Again the question returns, 
 What shall I do ? Togo on as for the last years, I cannot. My mind 
 is almost frittered away. I do fear it will never regain its tone 
 and elasticity. I cannot confine it to anything, and can recall 
 nothing of what I have known, — can have no clearness of thought. 
 I am in fetters and chains. How shall I break from tliem ? I 
 look abroad on Nature's face, and all is beautiful and lovely ; but 
 I find no corresponding harmony within. I am blind and deaf, 
 and if heaven itself were opened before me, I should shrink back 
 from its glories and enjoyments. My oppressed spirit finds no re- 
 lief in tears. I have lost communion with God. Heaven, once 
 near enough for intercourse, has receded from my view. I am 
 perplexed with doubt and uncertainty. The great diversity of re- 
 ligious faith, and that, too, with undoubted honesty, shakes mv 
 foundations. I find it hard to justify the ways of God to man. 
 What is truth? again and again I ask. lam tired of contro- 
 versy and theological discussion, though once deeply interested in 
 them. The spirit of sect and party I cannot away with, yet how ex- 
 tensively it prevails ! Who is free ? Who is not unduly wedded 
 to his own peculiar views ? Who is ingenuous, and willing to look 
 without bias on the opposite side of a question ? I look at the old 
 school and the new, atultraism and conservatism, but I find it not. 
 As Leonard Woods says, the world is all out of order, or else I am. 
 So says this party, so says that. Where is the unity of truth ? 
 Goethe says, ' Our wishes are presentiments of undeveloped capa- 
 
46 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 bilities, — harbingers of what we shall one day be able to accom- 
 plish.' I will remember this, and act upon it." 
 
 But enough of reference to this gloomy period. It stands, how- 
 ever, substantially, for the history of a long series of years. 
 
 In finisliing tlie reference to this visit at Dr. Woods's, I would say 
 of Margarette Lawrence that, with many peculiarities, she is a wo- 
 man of rare intellectual endowments and moral qualities. She has 
 always been a close student, not hesitating to grapple with Greek 
 and Hebrew, and setting no limits to her field of observation and 
 investigation. As a friend she is one of the most faithful and con- 
 stant. Through these many years the fidelity of our friendship 
 has never been interrupted. 
 
 In the autumn of this year came tidings of the loss of my friend 
 Mr. Chamberlain, the husband of my friend Catherine, by the up- 
 setting of the boat he was ascending the Danube in, on his home- 
 ward way to this country. I had a short time previously received 
 a letter from him, saying I should probably see him before hearing 
 from him again. And thus passed to the Unknown the last of 
 those friends so closely linked together. He was a lawyer, a man 
 of fine literary taste and culture, and in character generous and 
 honorable. 
 
 1840-1848. 
 
 After spending the summer of 1839 in Northampton, in October 
 of that year I went to Plymouth, N. H., to preside over the female 
 department of the Teachers' Seminary there, then under the gen- 
 eral superintendence of the Rev. S. R. Hall, a distant relative of 
 mine, but of whom I had had no previous knowledge, except as 
 he was generally known for his efforts in behalf of education. 
 Through the introduction of my friend Mr. Jewett to his uncle. 
 Rev. George Punchard, then settled in Plymouth, whom I had met 
 in Boston and Andover the spring before, I was urged to take upon 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 47 
 
 myself this new charge. I could not, at first, on account of my 
 health, give any encouragement. But on the acceptance of my 
 proposal, that at my own expense I might take with me two young 
 ladies who should assist me in teaching, I having the responsibil- 
 ity of it all, I decided to go. 
 
 It was a delightful journey that I and my two friends had, up the 
 Connecticut, by stage, from Northampton to some distance above 
 Hanover, N. H., and then over the hills eastward to Plymouth. 
 The scenery around that town itself is beautiful and animating, 
 and the air from its mountains pure and health-giving. Almost 
 every Saturday we made an excursion somewhere, accompanied 
 by the young gentlemen teachers of the institution. We climbed 
 all the mountains in the immediate environs, visited Red Hill, 
 which overlooks the beautiful Winnipiseogee, and took the drive 
 through the grand Franconia Notch to the Franconia iron mines. 
 I seemed to be almost among my native hills, and to be inhaling 
 my native mountain air. The effect was stimulating to mind and 
 body, and though I have no poetical talent whatever, and could 
 never make two lines rhyme, my thoughts and feelings had a great 
 tendency to sing themselves in a sort of rhythmic cadence. I 
 became better every way than I had been for a long time. With 
 the help I had, my school duties were comparatively light, though 
 the care of boarding-school girls I could not shake off. 
 
 I had a good deal of time for reading, and more strength for it, 
 but I found it necessary to economize my power by selecting 
 chiefly books that I could grow upon, — a habit which I have usually 
 kept up since. Carlyle introduced me to Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, 
 Richter, and other German writers, whose line of thought was 
 widely different from wdiat I had been accustomed to in books 
 which I had read ; and it was very attractive tome. Wordsworth, 
 in the midst of this hill scenery, was delightful to me, and the 
 moral influence of his poetry soothing and strengthening. Ma- 
 
48 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 dame de Stael was then my greatest of women. Mrs. Hemans 
 sang sweetly to me. Coleridge's " Aids to Reflection " were help- 
 ful. Quaint old George Herbert brought me new relations of 
 thought. Longfellow's " Hyperion " and poetry presented fresh- 
 ness of thought. 
 
 The young ladies with me entered very much into the same 
 literary pursuits with myself. They, with me and Mr. J. G. Hoyt, 
 then a teacher in the school, and for many years afterwards pro- 
 fessor in Exeter Academy, commenced the study of German, we 
 being our own teachers. The Rev. Mr. Punchard was exceedingly 
 polite and attentive to us all, and we found him most agreeable. 
 Judge Livermore, an old aristocratic Englishman by recent des- 
 cent and feeling, and a stern High Churchman, lived a few miles 
 from us. He had two daughters of quite an original type and of 
 unusual intelligence. With them we frequently interchanged vis- 
 its, and were introduced to quite a new phase of life. The family 
 had lived rather aloof from other people, had had their own private 
 little chapel and rector, and the children had grown up a good deal 
 with the feeling that the generality of people were quite a different 
 race of beings. But as they had little society, we were received 
 to all the amenities of their mansion, with great hospitality and 
 kindness. The key-note of our acquaintance was that we read 
 Oarlyle. 
 
 Notwithstanding the many pleasant and favorable circumstances 
 here, I suffered greatly from weakness and despondency. The 
 truth is, I was entirely unnerved, and did not well understand what 
 was the matter. I was mortified by, and reproached myself for, 
 mental and moral weakness, the origin of which was purely physi- 
 cal. The vision of ideal excellence was clear, and its beauty was 
 most attractive ; but the physical power necessary to sustain efforts 
 for its attainment was wanting. I cannot but think that many 
 persons condemn themselves, and are condemned by others, some- 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 49 
 
 times, for moral delinquencies which are attributable to purely 
 physical causes, — that crimes, even, maybe committed through a 
 sort of mental insanity, for which the actor is not wholly respon- 
 sible, and that in such cases pity, restraint, and efforts for mental 
 and moral development should be the treatment, and not punish- 
 ment. My moral sense in regard to sin and error and crime may 
 be considered rather obtuse ; but the weakness I have suffered, and 
 the inability to live up to my own standard, has taught me to be 
 lenient towards, and to find excuses for, the delinquencies of 
 others. Not that I do not often, on the impulse of the moment, 
 utter harsh judgments, but calm reflection, settled down upon, 
 always leads me to a kindly interpretation. 
 
 I find, from some records kept at this time, that I was in a con- 
 stant struggle for religious attainment, — religion as I then under- 
 stood it. Much of it was of the purely emotional kind, sometimes 
 amounting to a state of ecstasy, followed, of course, by a corre- 
 sponding reaction. To be near to God, to feel his presence, to be 
 in communion with the Saviour, — this was the great effort, this 
 would set all other things right. At the same time there was 
 another side to it, the effort to obey the command, " Be ye per- 
 fect, even as your Heavenly Father is perfect." 
 
 Partly, I think, from financial troubles of the school, and partly 
 from wishing to be free from boarding-house cares, I left Plymouth 
 in February, 1841, thinking to return to Northampton. On my 
 journey thither by way of Boston I went to Andover to spend a 
 week or two with the sister-in-law of Mr. Chamberlain, who had 
 adopted the doubly-orphaned little girl of my friend Catherine. 
 At this time I had applications to teach in the academies at South 
 Berwick, Me., at Derry, N. H., and to open a private school at 
 Salem ; but not feeling strong enough to assume any of those re- 
 sponsibilities, I accepted the invitation of Mr. T. D. P. Stone, prin 
 cipal of the Female Academy in Andover, to teach only forenoons 
 
 7 
 
50 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 in his school, and to have no other care or confinement. This was 
 an arrangement very favorable to the condition I was in. I found 
 a home in the pleasant family of Mrs. Brown, her two daughters, 
 and her son, afterwards professor in Dartmouth College. The 
 family were in social intercourse with the faculty and students 
 of the Theological Seminary, a decidedly literary atmosphere was 
 felt, and interesting books were to be had. I recollect deriving 
 new ideas from Schlegel's Philosophies of Life, of Language, and 
 of History. The causes and relations of things were always of 
 great interest to my mind. I followed up Carlyle and Emerson, 
 and become more acquainted with general literature. There were 
 occasional opportunities for attending lectures, — a privilege I had 
 never enjoyed before. The poet Richard H. Dana, Sr., gave a 
 course which I highly enjoyed. I gave some attention to German 
 and Italian, under the direction of teachers, and gave instruction 
 in French to a couple of theological students. Want of time and 
 of health prevented my making much advancement in the different 
 languages that I attempted to study at different times ; but the 
 time spent upon them was not lost, as it gave me some insight 
 into the philosophy of language in general, and prevented the 
 feeling of entire ignorance of the structure and pronunciation of 
 foreign tongues. Grammars and dictionaries have been quite 
 interesting reading-books to me. 
 
 This year my situation was more consonant with my tastes than 
 any one I had occupied before ; relief from care, and harmonious 
 surroundings, contributed to a better state of health, and conse- 
 quently I had greater mental tranquillity. The action and reaction 
 between mind and body is so intimate and so powerful, it is some- 
 times difficult to tell which is cause and which is effect. This I 
 know, that always since the first general impairing of my health it 
 has been most fearfully at the mercy of my feelings, an hour's un- 
 happiness often causing physical suffering for days, — a torturing 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 51 
 
 of the nerves which I had no power to resist or overcome except 
 by complete diversion from change of scene. Sleep under such 
 circumstances would yield to no wooing, but would leave whole 
 nights to be passed in misery. 
 
 I tire of this rehearsal of physical and mental suffering, which 
 has made up so large a portion of my life ; but it is all true, and 
 must enter into a just delineation of my life-story. It is necessary, 
 too, to a right interpretation of it, and it shows also how fear- 
 ful a thing it is to overtax one's powers of body or mind, or to 
 suffer an undue predominance of the emotional nature, — the pen- 
 alty for violations of inflexible laws being sure to come. 
 
 I stayed in Andover, with a few temporary absences, till the be- 
 ginning of 1844. Some months of the time I was not in school ; 
 a part of the time I was in the family of Professor Gray, of the 
 English Academy, assisting him in the preparation of a work on 
 Natural History. For some months I boarded at the Mansion 
 House. . . . 
 
 On my first visit to Andover, in 1839, I had been invited to the 
 academy in Gorham, Me., — an invitation which I declined; near 
 the close of 1843 it was repeated, and I accepted it, having had 
 quite a rest from my teaching in Andover. ... I had the care of 
 boarding-scholars and teaching on my hands for the whole of 1844. 
 Gorham is a quiet country place, with nothing of particular inter- 
 est any way. I just endured through it. The school was large 
 and flourishing, with quite a corps of teachers in its two depart- 
 ments, and many interesting scholars ; but I could not hold out 
 beyond the year. 
 
 After spending some weeks at Sylvester Judd's in Augusta in 
 the spring of 1845, I again went to Andover, and remained board- 
 ing at the Mansion House till near the close of the year. I was 
 quite at leisure, and conceived the idea of making a selection for 
 publication of some of the most practical of Pascal's " Thoughts," 
 
62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 which I had been reading with a good deal of interest from a 
 French copy given me from the Hbrary of ray friend Mr. Crosby. 
 Many of these " Thoughts " I had found of value to myself by their 
 teachings and suggestions, and I thought they might be so to others. 
 In consulting a publisher, he recommended to me — as the old and 
 imperfect English translation was out of print, and a new French 
 edition, with additions, had recently been issued — to go over the 
 whole works, revising the old translation, translating the newly 
 added portions, and prefacing the work with a sketch of the author's 
 life. This occupied a considerable portion of this period. I think 
 I sold the copyright for seventy-five or a hundred dollars. I did 
 not expect much remuneration, as it was a work that would have 
 only a slow and limited sale. 
 
 On leaving Andover, I spent the first half of tlie year 1846 with 
 my friends in Augusta, and the last half with family friends in 
 Northampton and its vicinity. I returned to Augusta in Decem- 
 ber, and for some months in 1847 I assisted in teaching in the 
 academy at that place. Still at Augusta, in the early part of 
 1848, I prepared the " Manual of Morals " for publication. From 
 my experience in teaching I liad felt the great deficiency in purely 
 moral instruction, and the want of a book suited to the use of the 
 younger classes. As there were no works on Ethics, except those 
 for colleges and academies, which were treated in an abstruse 
 manner unfitted for children, I felt prompted to attempt my best 
 towards remedying the defect. My little book was a compilation 
 in a considerable degree, and I followed in tlie old track of mak- 
 ing theology a part of morals ; but in some respects I think I car- 
 ried out the principles of ethics into common practical life more 
 fully and witli greater directness than had been done before. It 
 has long been my conviction that the only hope of the regeneration 
 of society lies in thoroughly enlightening and indoctrinating the 
 children in the principles of Right Conformity to the Nature of 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 53 
 
 Things, and in showing them that the transgression of natural 
 moral laws will just as surely be followed by a penalty, sooner or 
 later, to the individual or to the community, as is the violation of 
 the most apparent physical law. John P. Jewett undertook the 
 pubhcation of this book, and for a year or two his enterprise gave 
 it a good sale. Then he took up " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and 
 neglected his school-books. The " Manual of Morals " was ap- 
 proved by school superintendents and boards of education of many 
 of the prominent cities and towns, and entered upon their list of 
 books to be used ; but teachers generally did not feel interest enough 
 in the subject to put it into the hands of their scholars. Though 
 it is still kept in print, it is very little called for. I have received 
 only a few hundred dollars from it. 
 
 My health not getting essentially better during these three years 
 after leaving Gorham, in the autumn of 1848 I was induced to try 
 a course of water-cure treatment. This operated quite favorably, 
 and gave me a start on the way of convalescence. 
 
 But these three years were of value to me intellectually. I had 
 more leisure for general literature than previously. Novels, poetry, 
 history, travels, and biographies, with various miscellaneous works, 
 furnished me with interesting and valuable reading. Sylvester 
 Judd's library contained many books leading into new lines of 
 thought. " Wilhelm Meister " and Goethe's " Correspondence 
 with a Child," also some specimens of the writings of Richter and 
 Fichte, opened vistas into new fields of thought. The lives of 
 Goethe, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., were full of interest. George 
 Sand I began to know in her " Consudlo." Bayley's " Festus " 
 commanded attention. Hedge's "Prose Writers of Germany" 
 was liberalizing. Plato's " Divine Dialogues," with the " Apology 
 of Socrates," were charming. The " Vestiges of Creation," and, 
 I will add, some portions of Davis's " Divine Revelations," were an 
 opening wedge to " infidelity." A " History of Artists and their 
 
54 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Works " I was attracted to, and I was especially glad to get hold 
 of Chambers's " Cyclopsedia of Literature." The chronology of 
 English authors had been to me a mere muddle before, as I could 
 find no means of knowing where to place them in time or succession. 
 In a religious way, Bushnell's " Christiail Nurture" was a great 
 step forward in orthodoxy, and very helpful to me. The " Christian 
 Examiner" was enlightening, and Parker's "Sermons," which 
 appeared from time to time, commended themselves to my reason. 
 All these influences, added to the effect of Sylvester's preaching, 
 which I constantly heard when I was in Augusta, and the light I 
 obtained from conversation with him, made me quite ready to pass 
 over into the Unitarian ranks at the close of 1848. 
 
 1848-1861. 
 
 In December, 1848, immediately after the close of my water- 
 cure treatment, I went to Brooklyn, N. Y., to spend a few weeks 
 with a friend. While there, I was requested to take a position in the 
 Brooklyn Female Academy, involving some teaching and the charge 
 ' of the highest classes in composition. This was a large establish- 
 ment, with a corps of twenty teachers or so, and six or seven 
 hundred scholars. After much hesitation on account of my health, 
 I at length consented to occupy the position, but afterwards had so 
 many misgivings that I sought a release from my engagement, which, 
 however, was not granted. So I entered upon its duties, but with 
 the nerves of the head so weak that with great difficulty I got 
 through my daily tasks. But as time went on I gradually gained 
 strength, and remained in this institution a couple of years. The 
 principal of the institution was not a man for whom I had much 
 respect, and my relations to him were not altogether agreeable. 
 Besides, the compensation was small, five hundred dollars a year 
 being the highest salary for the female teachers. One of the 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 55 
 
 gentleman teachers, Avitli whom I had long had a friendly acquain- 
 tance, was also quite dissatisfied with his situation, and he pro- 
 posed to me to join him in establishing a new school. This 
 proposal I accepted, the terms being that, after all expenses were 
 paid, I should share in the profits in the same proportion as we 
 had relatively received compensation at the Academy, — that is, my 
 share being one fourth of his. 
 
 So I entered upon this new enterprise. As it proved that my 
 associate, Professor Gray, had no organizing or disciplining power, 
 the whole of that labor came upon me, even to the most minute 
 arrangements. Our school, which was called the Brooklyn Heights 
 Female Seminary, opened well at first, and soon came to have its 
 regular departments of Primary, Junior, and Senior, and numbered 
 three hundred or more. We took little girls, and carried them 
 through their whole course of school studies. Their senior course, 
 in my especial room, occupied three years. Their studies with me 
 were chiefly literature, art, history, and composition. Besides the 
 regular teachers of departments, we called in instructors in music, 
 drawing, languages, and other branches of science. We had also 
 courses of lectures by gentlemen on different subjects. I had then 
 never known the history of English literature or of art to be 
 attended to in any of our schools ; but feeling its value and 
 interest, I introduced it, and now, I think, it enters into the course 
 of all schools of much character. Our scholars were from the best 
 families in the city, and our school came to have a high reputation. 
 As the management and regulation of it had been chiefly my own, 
 from the initial stage onwards, it of course was highly gratifying 
 to me. The young ladies, clustered around me with kindness and 
 affection in the last years of tlieir school-life, were a great joy to 
 me. Their upturned faces, beaming with intelligence and eagerly 
 listening to my teachings, together with the evidences of refine- 
 ment and culture, were a glad reward for the efforts I had made. 
 
56 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Even now, as I meet them, they are enthusiastic over their school 
 life with me, and of the value of my instructions to them, as wives 
 and mothers. Still, were I now freely to arrange a school, accord- 
 ing to my own present ideas, it would be greatly modified from the 
 plan then adopted. 
 
 I continued in this school from the time of its establishment in 
 1851 until the close of the school year in June, 1861, — a much 
 longer period than I had ever before been able to hold out in con- 
 tinuous teaching. My labors were comparatively light. That is, 
 while I had much care and superintendence, I had no responsibility 
 out of school hours, and there were only five hours a day for only 
 five days in the week, and there were periods each day when I was 
 not specially occupied. In the beginning of 1860 Professor Gray 
 died. I carried the school through to the close of the academic 
 year. Then another gentleman was to come in as associate princi- 
 pal, and, although I was urgently requested to retain my place, I 
 was not willing to assume such a relationship with a stranger. 
 The power had been mostly in my own hands, and I was not 
 adapted to a position where an overruling power might be claimed, 
 especially as the school was substantially what I had made it. 
 Moreover, although my health was much improved, I still was a 
 good deal worn from the long continuance of my cares, and felt 
 the need of change and rest. Previously, I had had private classes 
 of our graduates and other ladies, and the following year I remained 
 in Brooklyn, giving instructions in advanced studies to several 
 private classes two or three days in the week. 
 
 As the result of all my previous teaching, at the time T went to 
 Brooklyn I had been able to lay aside of my pecuniary compensa- 
 tions only about eight hundred dollars ; and of this I lost half 
 through the failure of a person to whom I had loaned it, so that 
 about four hundred dollars was all I then had to fall back 
 upon. The Brooklyn Heights Seminary proved a turning of the 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 57 
 
 tide of fortune. The remuneration from it the first two or three 
 years so increased as to make my woman^s share of it about four- 
 teen hundred dollars a year ; but, as it became more and more 
 prosperous, and, as people said, through my influence, Professor 
 Gray — in whom was developed a spirit of avarice that I had 
 not been aware of — came to feel that the income from one fourth 
 of the profits, after all the most minute expenses had been paid, 
 was quite too much for a " woman to receive," and so insisted on 
 a change of terms to a regular salary for me of a thousand dollars. 
 As I did not wish to leave the school and enter upon any new en- 
 terprise, I thus submitted to the superior claims of manhood. 1 
 have always been very economical in. my habits, and, as at that 
 time everything was very cheap, I managed to lay aside every year 
 a considerable portion of my income. Many of my investments 
 have been quite unfortunate ; but still from this source and its ac- 
 cumulations I have enough, with my modest requirements, to serve 
 as a competency. 
 
 The " Literary Reader " I prepared in my leisure hours out of 
 school the second year I was in Brooklyn. John P. Jewett was 
 the publisher, and at first he secured quite a good sale for it ; but 
 soon he dropped the care of his school-books, and I received no 
 great amount for the copyright. The " Life of Sylvester Judd" I 
 also wrote while in Brooklyn, taking for it evenings and such 
 other time as I could command outside of school engagements. I 
 had known him from his birth, had had his confidence and under- 
 stood his idiosyncracies, and there seemed to be no one so well 
 qualified to give a true delineation of his character as myself. I 
 regretted that the work could not fall into abler hands, — or a 
 least that I could not have my best and freshest hours to give to 
 it. I was quite exhausted with the effort before it was completed. 
 It was a sad undertaking, but yet a great joy, to have, as it seemed, 
 his living presence with me in going over the review of his whole 
 
 8 
 
58 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 life, and reproducing its varied scenes from childhood onward ; so 
 that at the completion of the work, and the laying aside of all his 
 manuscripts which I had for so long had about me, it seemed like 
 losing him afresh. He had been to me more than any other one 
 of my family friends ; I received inspiration from him. There 
 always seemed in him a great amount of reserved power, — deep 
 fountains to draw from, the products of which were often surpris- 
 ing, and awakening curiosity as to what would come next. Then, 
 too, he was in the prime of his life, — not quite forty years of age, — 
 and in the midst of carrying forward a great movement in the church 
 which enlisted all his energies, and over-exertion for which really, 
 in great measure, cost him his life, in January, 1858, It seemed 
 a hard fate ; his loss to me was almost insupportable, not only 
 from the deprivation of his love and confidence, but also from that 
 intellectual sympathy and interchange of thought which I so highly 
 prized ; I was left, as it were, to stand alone in these respects. His 
 children, who had always been of great interest to me, now became 
 increasingly dear to me ; and with the tenderest solicitude I 
 watched their development and education, doing what I could in 
 any way to aid them. 
 
 One of the most valuable acquisitions from my life in Brooklyn 
 was my acquaintance with my highly esteemed and dear friend 
 Mrs. Christern, then Miss Emily Garrigue. She, with her parents, 
 came from Copenhagen to Brooklyn just about the same time I 
 went there, and she became connected with the Brooklyn Academy 
 as teacher of French and German very soon after my connection 
 with it. The culture and refinement apparent in her appearance 
 at once attracted me to her, and, as I became acquainted with her 
 intellectual endowments and the elevation and purity of her moral 
 nature, and experienced the winning kindness and affectionateness 
 of her heart, I was irresistibly drawn to her in friendship and love. 
 The acquaintance and friendship thus so pleasantly begun has been 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 59 
 
 strengthened and concentrated by a quarter of a century of unin- 
 terrupted confidence and intercourse, and is at tins time one of the 
 most prominent sources of my enjoyment. Her mother, now for 
 many years gone from sight, was a woman of rare talents, — 
 genius, indeed, I might say, — and with moral excellence equal 
 to her high intellectual endowments. Her ready wit and the bril- 
 liancy of her conversation were a charm to all who were favored 
 with her society. At the receptions at her house, as well as at 
 those of her daughter after her marriage, I have had opportunities 
 of meeting many intelligent foreigners, and of becoming acquainted 
 with European ideas and manners to a considerable extent. We, 
 of course, have much to learn from the older civilizations, while at 
 the same time they have much to learn from us ; and I have found 
 that the most intelligent among foreigners were disposed to do jus- 
 tice to our state of society. Well-educated people, I should say, 
 are the same in most respects the world over, and he is the 
 most highly developed human being who is the most truly cos- 
 mopolitan. So I have great pleasure in the anticipation of results, 
 intellectual, social, and religious, which it seems to me must neces- 
 sarily come from bringing all the world together by the facilities 
 of intercourse which science has already brought about and which 
 it promises for the future. It is to be hoped that the ethics in- 
 herent in the nature of things will come to be so well understood 
 that the best which the separate races and civilizations have been 
 able to discover and work out will be readily adopted by each 
 and all. 
 
 I had access to very good libraries in Brooklyn, and a good deal 
 of leisure for books. New York furnished much, in a variety of 
 ways, that was in contrast with my country life hitherto, and that 
 was of interest and value to me. In connection with my classes in 
 art I traced out whatever there was in tliis department in the city, 
 and took the young ladies with me to the different galleries. There 
 
60 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 was very little of statuary at that time, Palmer's works being the 
 chief. But, first and last, there were a great many pictures ex- 
 hibited. The old schools were represented by some originals and 
 many copies ; and there were galleries of modern French and Ger- 
 man pictures, the Diisseldorf containing many beautiful specimens. 
 The Academy of Design, at a later time, opened its annual ex- 
 hibitions ; and then there was the large collection of Egyptian 
 antiquities, with its mummied men and oxen and the relics of 
 its specimens of ancient artisanship. Operas, concerts, and the- 
 atres I had never had an opportunity of attending before, and I 
 followed them up to a considerable extent ; but they did not afford 
 me the enjoyment that I had expected. It is rare that I have seen 
 acting where the characters attempted to be personated carried 
 with them the impress of reality. Rachel satisfied, — she more 
 than satisfied, she delighted. She was herself what she simulated 
 for the time being, and with so much grace, beauty, and natural- 
 ness in every movement and expression, it was charming, — it was 
 transporting. A number of other performers might be named 
 who were very pleasing ; but in general they seemed to me to have 
 great shortcomings. And much of the music seemed wanting in 
 that element of expression, of feeling, which to me is the essential 
 soul of music. A full orchestra, with Beethoven's grand sym- 
 phonies, has given me the highest enjoyment. Mere execution I 
 am not able to appreciate. 
 
 When I went to Brooklyn, I was so far emancipated from all 
 rehgious creeds that I sought to hear all sorts of views discussed. 
 I attended service at almost all the different churches, including 
 the Swedenborgian, at which Professor Bush then preached. ... In 
 the course of a year or two, a movement was made to form a new 
 Unitarian society, and after hearing a variety of candidates, Mr. 
 Longfellow was engaged as the regular minister. From the first, 
 I attended the meetings of the society, and continued to attend 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 61 
 
 regularly as long as I remained in Brooklyn. The society built a 
 modest little chapel, but everything in its interior was arranged 
 with great taste ; the platform, with its background of crimson 
 drapery, and its soft, blue canopy, seemed to form a fit setting for 
 the golden hair and gentle form of its minister. His services were 
 peculiarly harmonious, the whole — music, prayer, scripture-read- 
 ings, and sermon — having the beauty and completeness of a poem. 
 The Communion Service, in which Mr. Longfellow himself carried 
 around the bread and wine, repeating at intervals, as he passed 
 around, some of the choice words of Jesus, was entirely unique in 
 its character and most happy in its influence. The Yesper Ser- 
 vice, too, which he first introduced to Protestant Churches, I think, 
 and for which he prepared a "" Service Book," was most charming, 
 — in its way, the aesthetics of religion. I often went away from 
 that little chapel feeling that it was indeed the house of God and 
 the very gate of heaven, and, as it were, under a spell, a charm, 
 which I was reluctant to have broken by any mundane sounds or 
 cares. Sometimes this sort of ecstasy after a vesper service, and 
 walking home under the brilliant, silent stars, lasted quite into the 
 night, preventing sleep. Mr. Longfellow's faith in the invisible 
 and his intuitive vision were so great that I naturally fell under 
 their magnetic influence, and the more readily as it was so happy 
 a change from the baleful Orthodox influences under which I had 
 been educated. But his influence, after all, was the emotional, 
 based upon the intuitive, and there was a want of basis and perma- 
 nence in its effects. While constantly under the influences of his 
 services, my mind and heart were in peaceful repose. Then, doc- 
 trinally, he was perfectly free and radical, so far as Bible author- 
 ity was concerned, the only trust and reliance being in our 
 own intuitions. I recollect that then Starr King first enun- 
 ciated to my mind that there was no necessary connection 
 between theology and religion. This was a startling and bold 
 
62 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 announcement, but I was happy to accept it, and found it quite 
 helpful. 
 
 In 1860 I received a letter from the church in Saco which I first 
 ioined, and of which I was still a member, asking if I " wished to 
 remain permanently connected with that church, or to remove 
 my connection to some evangelical church where I resided." My 
 reply will show my religious position at that time, and I will tran- 
 scribe it. I say : " I wish to be in the most friendly relations to 
 the children of God the world over, to be a member of the great 
 Church Universal in earth and in heaven ; and it matters little to 
 me of what one in particular I may be considered a member. So, 
 if it is consistent with the regulations of your church to allow my 
 name to remain upon your record, I should be pleased to have it." 
 I would say that there was no regular church organization in Mr. 
 Longfellow's society. I added : " I must, however, in candor say 
 that I am very eclectic in my theological views, and do not now 
 adhere to the articles of your creed as it stood when I united with 
 the church. I have come to feel that there should be a distinction 
 made between theology and religion, and in the latter I feel that 
 I could join harmoniously with all who have the spirit of Jesus 
 Christ, by whatever name called. I have for several years at- 
 tended the Rev. Mr. Longfellow's church of this place, and have 
 received, I think, great spiritual life from his ministrations. God 
 and religion were never so much to me as since I attended this 
 church." In answer to this letter, I received another note from 
 the church, asking for " a fuller statement of my present belief." 
 To this I replied : " As to the ground principles, I have very little 
 to add to the substance of my note to you. The central point is 
 the broad summary of Jesus Christ : Love to God and love to man. 
 I acknowledge, and wish to live up to, every obligation arising 
 from these two divine commands, taken in their widest and fullest 
 extent. I believe they are binding upon us througli the whole 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 63 
 
 course of our existence, and that they extend to all the engage- 
 ments of life, — in the shop and by the way, as well as in the temple 
 of worship ; on every day of the week, as well as upon the first, — and 
 that they should govern our secret feelings as well as our outward 
 actions. This to me is piety, this is religion. And here I make 
 a distinction between religion and theology : the one of the moral 
 nature, that of which right and wrong can be affirmed; the other 
 of the intellectual, the deductions of which vary according to the 
 amount of light received. Theology, I think, is rightly classed 
 among the speculative sciences. It is man's philosophy about God. 
 And, as God is infinite in all respects, and man is limited in his 
 capacities, and as the finite cannot philosophize with perfect cer- 
 tainty upon the Infinite, it follows that, in man's most earnest 
 investigations of a theological kind, he is liable to err. Man, too, 
 is created with powers susceptible of progress, of indefinite devel- 
 opment ; and, consequently, what seems to him true at one time 
 may, at another period, when more light and knowledge have flowed 
 in upon him, appear entirely false, inconsistent. And I believe we 
 ought always to be true to our own convictions of truth, let them 
 carry us where they may, and perfectly free to change our opinions, 
 when there is, to our minds, good ground for it. We believe on 
 evidence, and where evidence is wanting there can be no belief. 
 We cannot, therefore, control belief, but are forced to receive that 
 which comes to us with evidence of truth. It follows that, until 
 we attain to absolute perfection, we cannot remain stationary in 
 our views, but must, if we are earnest students and are truly in- 
 genuous, modify our opinions according to our present perceptions 
 of truth. And this brings me to the second ground-principle 
 of my present belief, — the right, the sacred duty, of exercis- 
 ing private judgment. Here I feel I stand on the broad plat- 
 form of Protestantism, the cardinal point of Luther, but a 
 principle that has been sadly trespassed upon from his day 
 
64 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 to this. Our worthy Puritan leader who declared that he be- 
 lieved more light was to break from the Holy Scriptures, and 
 who charged his people to be as ready to receive and follow 
 that light as any teachings they had had from him, was a noble 
 exception, and his example is one, I think, that should be imi- 
 tated. ... I might follow out these principles, in their various 
 ramifications, to greater length, but I do not know that it would 
 be of any value. What I have already stated, covers the whole 
 ground. The synopsis would stand thus : — 
 
 I. Supreme Love to God. 
 II. Love to the Neighbor. 
 III. Religion and Theology distinct. 
 IV. The Inalienable Right of Private Judgment." 
 
 Thus ended my intercourse with the church of which I was a 
 member. I have never heard a word from them since, and do not 
 know whether or not my name still stands upon their books. As 
 I look over this communication, I think I should like to have been 
 present to witness the effect of such heterodox sentiments upon 
 that Oalvinistic body. I hope at least that it conveyed a little 
 light and strength to some questioning listener. 
 
 1861-1876. 
 
 In the spring of 1862 I discontinued my private classes in 
 Brooklyn, which had been very pleasant to me and moderately re- 
 munerative, because I was tired of the confinement, and did not 
 feel strong enough to sustain myself to my own satisfaction. I 
 suppose I had had nearly two thousand young ladies, first and last, 
 under my care and instruction. I should like to begin afresh again, 
 with my present knowledge and experience. If I might be per- 
 mitted to carry out my ideas and influence with freedom on as 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 65 
 
 large a number, I think I could help on the world's progress, and 
 aid in laying a better foundation for the generations to come, by 
 better qualifying young women to be the right kind of mothers. 
 As it was, I think I tried to do the best I knew, and that must 
 content me. I have, indeed, the testimony of many that they have 
 had from me valuable help. 
 
 On leaving Brooklyn, I went directly to my niece, Mrs. J. H. 
 Williams, of Augusta, where I spent the warmer part of the 
 season for half a dozen years or so, and the colder part mostly 
 at J. W. Judd's in Orange, New Jersey. . . . My surroundings 
 there were exceedingly pleasant. Quite near were the wife and 
 children of Sylvester Judd, who were of great interest to me. . . . 
 The cottage home at Orange, on the borders of Llewellyn Park, is 
 very pleasant, and I have always enjoyed there a most kindly 
 welcome. A quite large and valuable library furnishes abundant 
 mental aliment. The family home at the little cottage in North- 
 ampton, where my sister, Mrs. Judd, still lives, at the age of almost 
 ninety years, has always been open to me. The death of her hus- 
 band, my highly valued brother-in-law, in 1860, made an ever 
 painfully felt void to me. From all my family friends I have 
 received great kindness, and there has never been a time when 
 more than one door was not open to receive me. And, I may add, 
 each and all give me the credit of having been helpful to them in 
 one way or another. I must say that I have always felt, if there 
 was anything that came in my way to be done, that I could do with 
 more readiness, or perhaps better than another at hand, it was my 
 proper business to do it, whether, in any strict sense, it belonged to 
 me to do it or not, — it was a thing to be done in the world, and I 
 could do it, and that was enough, and no one need feel under 
 obligations to me for it. 
 
 The winter of 1869-70, I passed pleasantly in Boston, and had 
 there my first opportunity of being present at the Radical Club — 
 
 9 
 
66 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the intellectual and spiritual lotus-eating feast — and of attending 
 the Horticultural Hall Lectures, where I heard with delight the 
 essay upon "Jesus and Socrates," and for the first time saw and 
 spoke with its author. I recollect, on coming out, some persons ex- 
 pressed great offence at the sentiments uttered, but I was then 
 ready to receive it all. At that time I received the first number of 
 " The Index," which was to me a new and most acceptable gospel ; 
 and its weekly "glad tidings" have been to me nutriment and 
 stimulus ever since. I was that winter a member of the Boston 
 Woman's Club, and attended all its meetings. But, I must say, 
 I was greatly disappointed as to the intellectual tone I had expected. 
 There seemed to be very little effected by its coming together, 
 and there was much that seemed commonplace and trivial. I don't 
 know how it may have been since. The winter and spring of 
 1871 I divided between the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and 
 Washington. These were all new to me, and I quite industriously 
 sought out whatever of special interest each had to furnish. I 
 spent a good deal of time at the Capitol at Washington, and was 
 present at the discussion respecting the removal of Mr. Sumner 
 from the Chairmanship of the Committee of Foreign Relations (or, 
 as one of the speakers humorously remarked, it was more properly 
 a question of personal relations). I heard Mr. Sumner's great 
 speech on St. Domingo, and a great speech by Mr. Schurz, — in 
 defence of Mr. Sumner, I think. Those two men impressed me as 
 being far superior to any other members of the Senate, not only 
 in eloquence, but in grasp of thought and in moral aims. The 
 impression made upon me by the House was that of an extremely 
 ill-governed, ill-disciplined school. The noise and confusion 
 seemed a disgrace to the hall of our national legislature. The trip 
 to Mount Vernon, on the broad, placid bosom of the Potomac, and 
 the visit to the mansion and the tomb of the " Father of his 
 Country," were of course of great interest. But I have not that 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 67 
 
 sensibility to impressions from historical localities that many have. 
 I can just about as well take in the whole impression from reading 
 as from being upon the spot. 
 
 In the autumn of 1872 I made the journey to Clear Lake, Minn., 
 sixty-five miles up the Mississippi above St. Paul. On my way I 
 stopped a day or two at Oneida Community, where I had once 
 before spent a couple of weeks, having among its members an aunt 
 and a cousin, — women of superior intellect and of great moral ex- 
 cellence, strange as the assertion may seem to those entertaining 
 the common opinion of that community. It must be understood 
 that their fundamental principle is that of having attained perfec- 
 tion in obedience to the command of Jesus, " Be ye perfect," and 
 that to the pure all things are pure. Love from each to all they 
 consider of the highest obligation, and at whatever cost of self- 
 abnegation. I have never seen a people of more modest behavior 
 or of purer manners. There was not the slightest indication of 
 self-indulgence or of low attractions ; and I was led to believe that 
 there is really less sensuality among them than usually exists in 
 families in the ordinary state. It would seem to require the inter- 
 pretation simply as a strange and most peculiar phase of religious 
 delusion. Education, art, industry, and all the valuable improve- 
 ments of life are cultivated. At Niagara I spent a few days with 
 my nephew, Rev. Myron Johnson, an Episcopal clergyman, and 
 had an opportunity of surveying at leisure all the wonderful scenery 
 of that region both on the American and tbe Canadian sides. 
 Tlie features of the country beyond Niagara were all new to me. 
 The great inland seas and the vast prairies produced a striking 
 impression. I soon tired of the long, treeless levels of the latter, 
 and was glad on returning to be refreshed by the sight of familiar 
 hills and trees. I feel that I could not live among such monoto- 
 nous scenery. The banks of the upper Mississippi were strangely 
 impressive, with their castellated cliffs and ever-varying outline. 
 
68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The sail down the river from St. Paul to Quincy, the last trip of 
 the season, with low water, constant getting aground, many delays, 
 and shortness of provisions, was sufficiently memorable. After 
 spending a little time with relatives in Quincy I made a visit to a 
 niece in Galva, III, whose husband is a Methodist minister, and 
 attended upon all their religious services, class-meeting included, 
 where I was invited to express my sentiments, — an opportunity 
 which I thought it wise to decline. The good minister, suspecting 
 my heterodoxy, sought to fortify me against unbelief, but (alas for 
 his kindly efforts !) without success. 
 
 But the most notable part of all this journey was my visit at 
 Toledo, where I was received with such remarkahle evidences of 
 hospitality and kindness. I had long felt a desire to be personally 
 acquainted with one whose kindly, helpful letters to me while yet 
 a stranger, and whose public utterances through " The Index," 
 had been of so much value to me. The familiarity and confidence 
 with which I was admitted into the bosom of the family, and the 
 kindness I received from each member, was truly delightful ; it 
 was a fresh, free atmosphere of thought and an elevated purity of 
 moral and spiritual life. Its influence went with me like a beauti- 
 ful halo of superior existence on my homeward way. I could not 
 then have anticipated the happiness in store for me, for three suc- 
 cessive winters, of daily opportunities for conversation upon the 
 highest and noblest intellectual themes, — of all that most deeply 
 interests the heart and soul in this present existence, and of the 
 hopes of an existence beyond where there may be more entire ful- 
 ness and freedom for the best aspirations of the spirit. Taking it 
 all in all, I must certainly accord to these periods the highest 
 rank, in the enjoyments of my higher nature, that I have ever 
 experienced. . . . 
 
 As I have before stated, the religious influences which I had re- 
 ceived from the ministrations of Mr. Longfellow at the " New 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 69 
 
 Chapel " operated upon me emotionally in a most delightful man- 
 ner. I was borne along by his intuitive confidence with great 
 spiritual repose. It was a glad rest and satisfaction, as compared 
 with the Orthodox atmosphere in which I had so long had my 
 stifled existence. In Augusta, removed from those religious influ- 
 ences I so much enjoyed, I began to feel that I had nothing very 
 substantial to fall back upon. My own " intuitions " did not seem 
 sufficiently trustworthy to sustain me. Then I read Herbert Spen- 
 cer's philosophy and Comte's Positivism ; and the result was that 
 all the intellectual part of my religion vanished away. I had no 
 God and no immortality left. Life came to seem useless and ob- 
 jectless,- — the successive images upon a mirror from a passing 
 procession. What mattered it to be born, to live, or to die ? Was 
 not lie the wisest whose rule of action was to eat, drink, and be 
 merry for the present moment, with no thought or care for the 
 past or future ? And yet I felt something within me that com- 
 pelled a preference for an ideal highest and best, — a something 
 prompting to noble feeling and endeavor, instead of yielding to 
 selfishness and self-indulgence. But for a long time I was in a 
 most unrestful, desponding, and unhappy state. It was at that 
 period, my dear friend, that you first came to my knowledge. I 
 heard' through Rev. Henry Brown, then of Augusta, of your 
 speech and the impression you made at the Syracuse Unitarian 
 Conference. Afterward, from time to time, T saw what seemed to 
 me unkind criticisms upon you in the " Liberal Christian." I 
 felt that I could understand your main standpoint ; I was im- 
 pressed with your spirit of freedom and your deep earnestness ; I 
 sympathized in your allegiance to truth, which made you ready to 
 follow your convictions of it wherever they led, and at whatever 
 sacrifice of personal feeling or interest ; and so, on general prin- 
 ciples, you being an entire stranger to me, I felt the keen injustice 
 of any harsh utterances against you. I was reminded of what 
 
70 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Sylvester Judd had suffered under a similar trial, and I felt that 
 you could not but find your position a very trying one ; so I indul- 
 ged the promptings of my heart, and ventured to intrude upon 
 your personality with some words of earnest sympathy. I did not 
 expect a reply ; it was enough that I satisfied my own impulse. 
 But an answer came, so full of grateful appreciation that I felt 
 the indulgence of my prompting justified. But better than this 
 was the aid which I received from the unfolding of your own 
 stimulus of action, — so grand, so far above the ordinary prin- 
 ciples of what I had known as religious motive. It struck a new 
 keynote to me, — that of " tlie transference of the main emphasis 
 of life from the future to the present," and " making religion 
 identical with the struggle for character and for human welfare 
 here on earth ; " that " with or without a God, with or without 
 personal immortality, the intrinsic worth of spiritual excellence is 
 a motive for boundless effort and self-sacrifice." And then your 
 own position : " To live here in such fashion that at every moment 
 I may respect myself, and feel I am helping to better the lot of 
 humanity, is an object sufficient for limitless exertion ; " and " I 
 count it a dazzling destiny to serve the cause of spiritual eman- 
 cipation and free human development ; " also, " In my ethics the 
 welfare of each individual soul is part and parcel of the universal 
 welfare of the race, and the individual cannot realize his own most 
 private ideal unless he consecrates himself to universal ends." 
 Here was something really worth living for, after all. My nature 
 responded at once, and with warmth, to these noble, these elevat- 
 ing sentiments. I began to find a foundation broader and firmer 
 than any I had known before, — something of that " Eternal Rock " 
 on which " a soul grounded on the ultimate rectitude and justice " 
 rests. This formed an era in my experience. I was now " con- 
 verted." I had tried for this long before, but never had succeeded. 
 I now passed " from death unto life," — that great ordeal of Moody's 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 71 
 
 efforts. But how unlike ! How in perishing need of the w^onder- 
 ful change, in the view of such as he ! Then came " The Index," 
 with all its " Liberty and Light." I must confess I was at first a 
 little startled by its broad enunciation of being ^'•squarely outside 
 of Christianity." I was not quite prepared for this ; and then, 
 too, I feared it was not quite best to say it to the world, even if it 
 was true. I did not then know the utterly uncompromising nature 
 of its editor, and had been too long trained in the policy of expe- 
 diency to feel that the truth was none too good to be proclaimed 
 with freedom, and that, however seemingly hurtful, it was far bet- 
 ter than any illusion, however cherished. Great has been the 
 change in my feeling regarding Christianity since that time. As 
 I have become better instructed on the subject, I cannot see that it 
 has any higher claims to authority than any of the other historical 
 religions, or that the so-called Christian precepts have any special 
 claim to originality with Jesus. I rejoice in the belief that, as a 
 system, it is destined to pass away from the credence of the world ; 
 that this work has already commenced, and is in progress ; and 
 that the era of a more rational religion, one better adapted to the 
 elevation, the well-being of humanity in its universality, has begun 
 to dawn upon us. 
 
 As to myself, I do not know what Crod is. Matthew Arnold says, 
 " He is that Eternal Power, not ourselves, that makes for right- 
 eousness." If he gets a satisfactory idea out of that definition, he 
 does better than I can. It seems to me there must be intelligence 
 and wisdom at the centre of the Universe, and that a plan for the 
 best exists, but that the Author of all is beyond our comprehen- 
 sion. As to a life beyond this, I must say that at present, with 
 me, the evidences do not preponderate over the uncertainties. I 
 can only say, with Mr. Emerson, that I have the conviction " that, 
 if it be best that conscious personal life shall continue, it will con- 
 tinue ; if not best, then it will not; and we, if we saw the whole, 
 
72 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 should of course see that it was better so." And Schiller, he 
 writes, sajs : " What is so universal as death must be benefit." 
 So I hope, when my last moment comes, peacefully to close my 
 eyes and surrender my breath, in fullfaiththat the best will happen. 
 And this truly seems to me a higher triumph for any one than any 
 of those ecstasies of Christian experience, when the departing soul 
 passes away in rapture, filled with the belief that it is going imme- 
 diately into the presence of its beloved Lord and Saviour, and about 
 to participate in all the transcendent glories of a celestial Paradise. 
 In the mean time I will try to live as best 1 can. 1 wish it could 
 be better. The effects of early habits, of false principles, still cling 
 to me. I would give — what would I not ? to be a child again, born 
 into an atmosphere of free and enlightened thought, and with just 
 ideas of life, its relations, its duties, and its worthiest aims. 
 
 I shall not attempt any general summary of the elements of my 
 intellectual or moral nature. Different environments at first, and 
 different circumstances and conditions ail along, would, of course, 
 have differently modified and developed my character. The dis- 
 advantages under which I have labored, and the many difficulties 
 with which I have had to struggle, have had their compensations 
 in various ways, and perhaps, on the whole, the result is as well as 
 if a seemingly more favored lot had been accorded to me. I think 
 a strong sense of right and justice has always been a predominant 
 trait in my moral nature. Previously to my loss of health, it was 
 quite easy for me to go on firmly in obedience to the behests of 
 these principles. I have naturally a great love of approbation — 
 not vanity, I think, but growing out of a strongly felt need of har- 
 mony — of at-one-ment with those about me. It is a sort of cruci- 
 fixion to me to be at variance with those near or dear to me. This 
 intense desire for sympathy has been my most prominent weakness, 
 especially since my loss of health, and has sometimes caused me to 
 falter in acting up to my highest ideal. 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 73 
 
 And now I seem to have come to the end of this long story of 
 my life. 
 
 It was begun without a plan of execution, for I could not, to 
 start with, see my way through the dim labyrinth of the past. As 
 it has opened to me, I have proceeded, but with less method than 
 if I could have taken in the whole at one survey. Not a line of it 
 has been re-written. It might, of course, be improved by re-cast- 
 ing and re-writing the whole ; but that is a task I do not feel equal 
 to. While it has required no little resolution thus to summon up 
 the ghosts of my past life, and to delineate them for the inspection 
 of another eye, and no little effort to execute the undertaking, it 
 has, at the same time, been a work of great interest to me, and of 
 pleasure too. In going through it all, I do not see that I have made 
 any great mistakes in voluntary decisions, circumstances being as 
 they were. So I have the consciousness within of doing, in general, 
 about the best that I could. 
 
 And now, as I come upon the last page, a little of the sadness 
 always attaching to the idea of the last I find stealing over me, 
 and inclining me to linger upon the final words. But the end has 
 come. How much or how little remains to complete the story, 
 time only can show. 
 
 Such as it is, my dear friend, I submit it to you. The friend- 
 ship you have evinced for me gives assurance that you will find in- 
 terest in the narrative, that your criticisms will be kind, and that 
 I am safe in confiding it to your hands. 
 
 Arethusa Hall. 
 
 New York, April 13, 1876. 
 
 10 
 
EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM 
 
 PRIVATE NOTE-BOOKS AND JOURNALS. 
 
 1872. — What can be said of the consistency of Unitarians, who in 
 general do not believe in the full inspiration of the Scriptures, nor 
 in the divine or superhuman nature of Jesus, but who still strenu- 
 ously insist upon the importance of retaining the name Christian ? 
 If Jesus was a man like other men, even allowing him to have 
 been the best man that ever lived, why the importance of being 
 forever called by his name, rather than of adopting one that 
 should embrace all earnest and devout souls of the human race, 
 and that should indicate nearness to, and enlistment under, the 
 leadership of the One Supreme ? Granting that Jesus is " our 
 holiest brother, our greatest helper," if he is alike a man with us 
 and with us equally related to God in a common humanity and a 
 common affinity to him, is that a sufficient reason why we must 
 forever be called by his name, instead of a broader, a grander one, 
 which may embrace the relations of all humanity in its religious 
 aspirations and attainments to the One Father of all ? The taking 
 of the name of any one man implies a stop to progress, — implies 
 that that one^ in his day, attained to all ultimate and absolute truth. 
 And who is ready to affirm this of any man, however perfect and 
 however great a " helper " he may have been ? Those who do this 
 
76 EXTRACTS. 
 
 are brought to a standstill. Minds differ. Let us take help from 
 all who can help us. Let us be free to take whatever seems true, 
 come from what source it may. But let us not limit ourselves to 
 Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, or Jesus ; to Luther, Calvin, nor yet 
 Channing, Parker, or Abbot. Let all be helpers, but none masters. 
 
 1872. — Two friends make a journey of sixty miles in one direc- 
 tion, ten or a dozen in several others, to see colts. Great improve- 
 ments are made in the race of cows, hens, and pigs. But where 
 is the care for improving the human race, — their health, their 
 beauty, their moral or spiritual nature ? What an absence of per- 
 ception of the relative importance of things ! How low in the 
 scale of real civilization must we yet be, when the material, the 
 brute agencies of nature are so much in the ascendent, even in the 
 minds of the professedly religious and cultivated ! Murray and 
 Beecher can make books upon the horse, but what do they urge in 
 relation to the physiological laws which are so deeply concerned in 
 the advancement, elevation, and perfection of the souls and bodies 
 of men ? A delicate subject, it is said. But where lies the indeli- 
 cacy, save in the minds of those debased by false ideas of nature^ 
 tainted with the notion of our innate depravity, and imbued with a 
 religion which teaches the duty of despising nature and trampling 
 under foot all its instincts ? 
 
 Feb. 26, 1873. — Do we not have first to discover, by the action 
 of the environment upon us, that there exists in the order of Na- 
 ture, in the nature of things, transcendent harmony, fitness, beauty, 
 tendency to highest good ; and, after the perception, comes there 
 
EXTRACTS. 77 
 
 not the feeling of wishing to be at one with this ? Following this 
 sentiment, rises there not spontaneously the effort to bring our- 
 selves into this relation ? Does not a sense of the Infinite arouse 
 into action the germ in us of wishing, seeking, striving to be like 
 it ? And is not this striving the religious part of it, while the per- 
 ception is the intellectual ? Is there any religion in mere belief 
 or perception ? Does not the religion consist in striving to be in 
 accord with the highest, the best we know ? Does not Mr. Abbot 
 make one more analysis than Mr. Potter, — that of separating an 
 intellectual from a religious process ? 
 
 April 30^ 1875. — The intellectual life, the life of the spirit, — 
 there is notliing so high. It is not pure reason alone, it is soul, it 
 is heart, all elevated to the plane of the infinite as nearly as the 
 finite can reach. It is oneness with the all-pervading Spirit of the 
 Universe, the ecstatic harmony [of] the one with the all. The 
 sense of this is delight, exultation, even in solitude. But, w^hen 
 shared in an understanding sympathy with other souls, it is heaven, 
 — inclusive of everything really valuable that the material has to 
 give. How world-wide [distant] from this [is] the level of life of 
 the most of persons, and what a sense of solitude intercourse with 
 such gives to those who have once tasted of this heavenly joy ! 
 This is not sentimentality, it is the highest reality. It does not 
 incapacitate for daily life, — it seems rather to make it the more 
 perfect, to permeate it with beauty and excellence. The religion 
 which tends to the " perfection of man " would insure all this. 
 And, truly, labor for the promotion of such a state of the world 
 may vrell seem " a dazzling destiny." 
 
78 EXTRACTS. 
 
 March 22, 1877. — My mind is highly philosophical. It natu- 
 rally had great grasping power. At about the age of thirty, my 
 health began to be seriously affected. ... At about thirty-five, 
 from constant over-taxing of the brain in study and teaching, a 
 sudden giving way of the brain occurred, and for years I could not 
 read a book or bring my mind to bear upon anything with any con- 
 secutive power. ... In conversation I could not embody the best 
 thoughts I had, and was forced to let pass or waive points from 
 want of mental power to set forth and maintain my own ideas. 
 Especially has this been true when conversing with persons of 
 strong minds and positive ways of presenting thought. This has 
 caused me immense embarrassment and mortification, and has led 
 me to shrink from interviews with persons with whom I have 
 longed to hold intercourse. Although, knowing the cause, it ought 
 not, yet it has, almost necessarily, touched upon self-respect ; self- 
 confidence it could not but impair. 
 
 From the physical condition in which I have been, extreme seri- 
 ousness has been a natural result. A terrible depression of spirit, 
 almost insupportable at times, has been another. This, acting 
 upon the sympathetic nerves of the stomach, has caused agony 
 there. Such has been a great part of my life. No one has under- 
 stood it, and I have had very little of that sympathy which would 
 have been the best medicine. But it has given me the power to 
 understand others in suffering conditions, and my sympathy with 
 such has been spontaneous. Therefore, putting aside self, this, 
 perhaps, ought to be joy enough, — a joy it certainly has been. 
 Taking it all in all, I cannot but be pretty well satisfied in my own 
 eyes, as wishing to do the best, — tryimg to do it, notwithstanding my 
 failures to attain the goal desired. 
 
EXTRACTS. 79 
 
 Jan. £9, 1878. — Yesterday it was forty-one years since my loss 
 of the best of friends. I yearn for her still. I need such a friend 
 in daily life, . . . and I cannot trouble those who have too much 
 of their own to bear. 
 
 April 5. — I have been enjoying reading aloud to Mr. Abbot, 
 evenings, for some weeks. I have read to him "Les Miserables," 
 " Picciola," " Consuelo," and am near finishing " The Countess of 
 Rudolstadt." We find George Sand terribly wanting in the truth- 
 fulness of her best characters. . . . And, in contrast, I am more 
 and more impressed with the laxity of most persons in this respect. 
 In my own experience with persons not considered untruthful, it 
 has still seemed to be taken as a thing of course that little subter- 
 fuges for concealing, modifying, or diverting from the truth were 
 perfectly right. In my own case, I am conscious I grew up very 
 much in that way, not thinking but it was all well ; although, I am 
 sure, I have in my heart naturally the greatest love and reverence 
 for truth. 
 
 Northampton., Oct. 5, 1879. — Alone in the house. It is Sunday 
 morning. The tramp of passing church-goers has just ceased. No 
 sound but the measured and almost solemn tick, tick, of the old 
 family clock. The trees in all the glory of their autumnal hues. 
 I looked for Emerson's words : " Standing on the bare ground, the 
 currents of universal Being pass through me ; the names of father, 
 brother, seem strange to me." I could not find them, and cannot 
 quote them exactly ; but my own emotions reminded me of them. 
 My heart seemed to beat in unison with the great heart of Nature. 
 It is good to be leisurely alone with the Soul of the Universe, to 
 feel at one with the informing Spirit of the Whole, unfathomable, 
 
80 EXTRACTS. 
 
 incomprehensible though it be. Yet I have faith in the Infinite 
 Intelligence and Wisdom that presides over and governs all, call it 
 God or what one may. In my best moments, I am willing to trust 
 myself entirely to this Power, unknown, unparticularized though it 
 be in my own mind. Whether conscious existence continues after 
 this life, I know not. I have little expectation of it. I cannot 
 find sufficient evidence for immortality. I wish it, I hope for it. 
 It seems to me we do not know enough of Nature's purposes to say 
 that she does not carry out in this life all that she intends for us. 
 . . . And so I throw myself on the bosom of universal Nature, try 
 to forget the annoyances of the petty, the individual, and so find 
 serenity and repose. 
 
 Cambridge, Jan. 27, 188If. — Thirty-one years, yesterday, since 
 Sylvester disappeared. He would have been over seventy now. 
 Does he still live ? And how ? 
 
 To-morrow, forty-seven years since Catherine, my noblest friend, 
 departed, — the highest moral character I have ever known, and in- 
 tellect equally distinguished. 
 
 While I admire intellect and acumen, wit and brilliancy, high 
 moral endowments far surpass these in my reverence and love. 
 The analysis of character has been my study through life, — the 
 tracing out of the springs of action, and the estimating of the out- 
 ward by the inward prompting motives. I am sure I have a strong 
 sense of justice in my nature, and the witnessing of an injustice 
 done to another I feel as if done to myself. 
 
 ^eh. 6. — If I live after this life, I know I shall gravitate towards 
 the greatest in goodness and in knowledge. Not that I should be 
 
EXTRACTS. 81 
 
 entitled to be one of them, but that I should wish to sit at their feet, 
 to listen to their words, having attraction in no other direction ; 
 and they, seeing my craving and my sympathy, would not spurn 
 me from them. 
 
 February 18. — We need those who are in sympathy with our 
 best., to bring forth our best. The presentation of what we disap- 
 prove, of what we condemn as unjust, as wrong, as foolish, when 
 we cannot help it, cannot express our honest disapproval with our 
 reasons, stirs within us the less worthy elements of our nature. 
 
 Socrates says : " Give me beauty in the inward soul ; and may 
 the outward and the inward man be at one." So I most ear- 
 nestly pray. 
 
 March 5. — Plato says the notion of Eryximachus of love may be 
 summed up as the harmony of man with himself, in soul as well as 
 in body, and of all things in heaven and earth with one another. 
 Such is my idea. From my earliest years, harmony has been the 
 great want of my being; dissonance most painful, and in all tlie 
 daily intercourse of life its presence most aggravating. I have 
 been told that my mother, from certain elements she saw in me 
 while quite young, thought of giving me the name Harmony. 
 
 Socrates says. Love is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the 
 good ; and in desiring the beautiful he desires, not only the good, 
 but its everlasting possession ; and this is happiness. All beauty is 
 of one kindred, and there is a single science of universal beauty. — 
 Man cannot exist in isolation. The loves of this world are an in- 
 distinct anticipation of an ideal union not yet realized. 
 
 11 
 
82 EXTRACTS. 
 
 March 15. — Sitting here alone in my room, communing with the 
 thoughts of other souls that have lived, I feel myself exhilarated. 
 I feel as fresh in my emotions and sympathies as in the first gush 
 of youth. I cannot realize my count of years. I feel too full of life 
 to believe that its end can come for a long period yet ! I wish to 
 recall all the experiences through which I have passed, the various 
 phases of character which have at times been most prominent. I 
 wish to analyze and draw out the philosophy of my life. JSTo one 
 knows me fully, or ever has known me. A forced concealment, 
 a repression, has always ruled me. A lone soul I have always 
 lived. . . . 
 
 April 28. — ... If my physical system had remained firm, and 
 the power of will had not yet been weakened through nervous de- 
 bility, my experience would have been very different. For the time 
 was when I could stand firm as a rock on what I thought the right. 
 At an earlier period, I had the Orthodox Christian conviction that 
 God ordered all, even the most minute affairs, and in quiet submis- 
 siveness and trust I felt that all would be well. A soothing and 
 comfortable faith, even if baseless ! Have I lost ? Have I regrets 
 for giving it up ? iVb, emphatically. Truth is far more precious 
 than illusions, however soothing their influence. 
 
 June 14, 1885. — There is nothing so hard to bear as mental de- 
 pression, irritations that come to a sensitive nature from antagon- 
 isms and an absence of sympathy in what most vitally interests 
 one's self. It is a starving, famishing life, and years have no power 
 in killing out the sensibility. Energies and aspirations that have 
 no chance or liberty to put forth in accomplishing turn back in 
 devastation. . . . 
 
EXTRACTS. 83 
 
 September 17, — Have just finished the " Life of John Brown.'' 
 I am impressed with admiration of his calm, steadfast, and bold 
 adherence to his convictions, though I think he entirely misjudged 
 in his attack upon Harper's Ferry, His condition under sentence of 
 death seems to me as sublimely great as that of Socrates. 
 
 Northampton, July 3, 1886. — 
 
 " It is too late ! Ah, uothing is too late, 
 Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate. 
 
 Something remains for us to do or dare ; 
 Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear, 
 
 For age is opportunity no less 
 
 Than youth itself, though in another dress." 
 
 Longfellow : Morituri Salutamus. 
 
 Sunday, July 4- — -^H going by to church, in gay carriages and 
 on foot, all dressed in their best. What is the ruling motive, the 
 ruling experience ? I suppose the most v^ould think me, sitting 
 here, never going to church, quite a heathen. But I feel in my 
 soul near to the Spirit of the Universe, penetrated by the mysteries 
 of existence, and filled with earnest desires to be in harmony with 
 eternal laws and to govern my whole being by principles of abso- 
 lute rectitude. What better could the churches give me ? Alas, 
 the plane of their teachings seems incomparably below the neces- 
 sities and cravings of my spiritual nature. Alone in the house, in 
 
84 EXTRACTS. 
 
 this perfect stillness and solitude, there is something uplifting, 
 transcending, bearing the spirit away into unseen realms of the 
 Eternal, — the Immanent Source and Universal Presence of the All. 
 
 Northampton^ Aug. 19, 1887. — As I read in the " Life of Long- 
 fellow " of all the persons distinguished in art, in poetry, in liter- 
 ature and science, with whom he was in constant intercourse, I am 
 saddened that such society could not have been mine. Though I 
 have not the power of producing, I have the power of appreciating 
 and highly enjoying such society, and such I have always craved. 
 If life continues after this, my spirit, freed from the limitations of 
 the body, will, I am sure, gravitate towards the highest and the 
 best. And will they not admit me as of their degree ? 
 
 Northampton, May 19, 1888. — Alone in this kitchen, with the 
 clock ticking as sole companion, yet tranquil, happy. I have 
 come at length to find a measure of rest within, instead of those 
 intense outreachings for satisfactions without. After all, our own 
 souls are the basis on which we must depend. It is a grand mis- 
 take to seek out of ourselves perfect solace. I have been miserably 
 weak all my life in craving for outward sympathy. — I have had a 
 time given to work with my hands. Now comes a pause, and I 
 return to books with fresh relish. I cannot originate, but I have 
 power to appreciate the productions of others. 
 
EXTRACTS. 85 
 
 UNSEEN. 
 Rev. Charles G. Ames. 
 
 How do the rivulets find their way ? 
 How do the flowers know the da}-, 
 And open their cups to catcli the ra}' ? 
 
 I see the germ to the sunlight reach, 
 
 And the nestling knows the old bird's speech : 
 
 I do not know who is there to teach. 
 
 I see the hare from the danger hide, 
 
 And the stars through the pathless spaces ride : 
 
 I do not see that the}' have a guide. 
 
 He is eyes for all who is eyes for the mole ; 
 All motion goes to the rightful goal : 
 O God, I can trust for the human soul. 
 
 Aug. 28, 1888. 
 
 [The last entry, dictated.] 
 
 Feb. IS, 1891. — " Religion consists in the perception of the In- 
 finite, under sucli manifestations as are able to influence the moral 
 character of men " (^Natural Religion, Max Miiller). 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 MISS ARP:THUSA hall to MRS. MARGARET WOODS 
 
 LAWRENCE. 
 
 164 Elm SteeeTj Northampton, May 21, 1889. 
 
 . . . You ask how the other life looks to me. I have no idea 
 of its details. I trust ; I hope. I think there is great reason to 
 believe in its existence, and every reason to trust that all is wisest 
 and best, — that the Ruler of the Universe does all things well. 
 Upon the bosom of this wonderful Nature I feel that I can cast 
 myself, and die in peace. 
 
 The religion of Nature, including man, of course, with all that 
 he has effected in this wonderful universe, so far as Science can 
 penetrate through the aeons of the past, — the religion derived 
 from all this is to me soul- satisfying, and to me forms the highest, 
 the noblest, ideal of the Infinite Person, the soul of all, that I can 
 desire ; it forms to me a religion incomparably more intelligent 
 and wisely devout than the past has entertained. All the histori- 
 cal religions of the world, including the Christian, differ from each 
 other chiefly in degree in seeking in the supernatural for the satis- 
 faction of the infinite longings of the soul. And, dear Margaret, 
 I know the candor of your nature will allow me to say it to you, 
 since it is true, and you will feel kindly to me when I say : It is 
 
88 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 strange to me how a woman of your intellect, of your natural in- 
 dependence of thought (and in saying you I would say, also, a 
 man of your son's knowledge, and ministers generally of the 
 highest scientific knowledge) can believe the Bible to be other 
 than a record of the best knowledge and thought of purely human 
 minds, working in the way natural to all human minds, simply 
 under the light and knowledge to which they had attained. And 
 how you can take this record as from the mouth of God ! 
 And then the God of this whole mighty universe coming to this 
 speck of earth, entering into the womb of a virgin, and in due time 
 emerging as a human child, to be a Mediator and Saviour of a race 
 whose ancestors offended the Supreme Parent, and thus dragged 
 all their posterity to perdition ! I can't help it, Margaret, but it 
 is to me on a par with all the avatars of heathenism ; and the 
 whole system is to me but a more civilized form of what we call 
 heathenism ! 
 
 You are too wise to be shocked : you may be pained, you may 
 pity. I should not say it but in trust of your really superior intel- 
 lect and your great hospitality for what you may consider great 
 error. I have failed to do justice to my thought and my position ; 
 but I am too tired to rewrite, and thus give more clearness and 
 fulness to them. But I think you will be able to read between the 
 lines. 
 
 I should not have attempted to define my position thus far had 
 you not rather given me the challenge. I know well all the argu- 
 ments you can bring against me, have known them from my youth 
 up, through the " bodies of divinity " I have read, and all the ser- 
 mons I have heard. I do believe I am on a Rock more aged than 
 yours, and deep as the foundations of eternity. I am at peace ; 
 and my religion is to me the soul of my life, permeated with an 
 enthusiasm such as I never felt under the influence of the faith 
 into which I was born. . . . How beautiful the world is now ! 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 89 
 
 What a wonderful resurrection to new life ! — God immanent in 
 
 all! 
 
 " O God, I can trust for the human soul! " 
 
 Faithfully your old friend, 
 
 Thus A. 
 
 REV. EDWARD A. LAWRENCE TO MISS ARETHUSA HALL. 
 
 Sing Sing, N. Y., May 23, 1889. 
 
 My dear Miss Hall, — Your last letter to my mother, in which 
 you kindly refer to me, has so much of interest in it that I have 
 asked the privilege of making some response. I wish this espe- 
 cially because, if I understand what you say, your Rock is our Rock, 
 and, however we may have come to it, and with whatever differ- 
 ences of expression and explanation, not only our Life, but our 
 Faith rest in the same way upon him. 
 
 We should, of course, at the very start grant the inadequacy 
 of language to express our Faith, and the inadequacy of our 
 Faith to compass the Truth. Our words miss the thought at 
 which they aim, and the truth evades our definition ; yet in 
 a partial and differing way each may apprehend it, and we may 
 meet in the same centre. You " have no idea of the details of 
 the other life," but great confidence " in its existence ; " you 
 " trust that all is wisest and best, — that the Ruler of the Uni- 
 verse does all things well." There we are quite at one. The 
 only suggestion I find as to details is from the analogy of spirit 
 and character in this beginning of life. I believe that the Eternal 
 Life begins in Time, and that this beginning shapes the continuance 
 and the end ; that death is not revolution, but evolution. So from 
 the study of the germ here I come to anticipate certain things be- 
 yond. But because of my belief in Him who does all things well, I 
 am most sure of all that it will l)e better than my best imaginings. 
 
 12 
 
90 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 That, too, seems to me the teaching of the bold Oriental imagery 
 of the Bible. I have little doubt that our hopes are much alike 
 in this matter. 
 
 When you speak of the " religion of Nature," I am not sure that 
 I know just what you mean. If you mean simply that wonder, awe, 
 reverence, which in many souls results from the view and study of 
 Nature, — in a word, the feeling which Nature inspires in us, with- 
 out reference to anything to which Nature points, — I should say 
 tliat was to me an unusual sense of the word, for which I should 
 be more apt to use the term " religiousness." Religion seems to 
 imply the relation between persons, and I like best to speak of it 
 as the Life of God in the Soul of Man. The religion of Nature 
 would, therefore, mean to me the religion to which Nature points, 
 the personal relation which it suggests. But I think this must be 
 your own meaning ; for you say " the religion derived from all this 
 ... to me forms the highest, the noblest, Ideal of the Infinite 
 Person, the soul of all, that I can desire." If Nature, " including 
 man," inspires you with faith in an Infinite Person, of whose per- 
 sonality our own is but a faint reflection, then we are alike. Right 
 here it is possible that our ways might divide, yet your words 
 encourage me to hope not. I am accustomed to think of Nature, 
 including Man, as an effect, — not exclusively, but mainly so. 
 This effect suggests — I should better say reveals — God ; and that 
 as something not separate or removed, but at once immanent and 
 distinct. I should not care at all about the geometrical manner of 
 stating His relation to Nature, — whether called transcendent or 
 immanent, whether thought of as working within or without, above, 
 beyond, in front, or back of all things. Every such expression is 
 partial ; all taken together can but hint at the truth that He is All 
 in All. But I should care very much about being able to say God 
 and Nature, rather than God or Nature, as if the two were not 
 simply interwoven, but identical. Some distinctness between the 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 91 
 
 two is certainly necessary, in order to have any relation between 
 the two. Grant sufficient distinctiveness for an actual relation- 
 ship, then I think all various ways of expressing that relationship in 
 a degree truthful. We may think of it as being that of the Cause 
 to the Effect, or of the body to the raiment, or of the soul to the 
 body, or of the life to its manifestation, or of the Ruler to the 
 Universe. Each expression is partial, each helpful. 
 
 It seems to me that you indicate the acceptance of some sucli 
 relationships between God and Nature, implying their distinctness. 
 You say " the Ruler of the Universe does all things well ; " you 
 speak of " God immanent in all," and of the " Infinite Person, the 
 Soul of all." We use exactly the same language. Do we not mean 
 the same? Only one phrase causes me to doubt. Looking on 
 Nature as the work and working of God, I should need to change 
 one word in your sentence, " Upon the bosom of this wonderful 
 Nature I feel that I can cast myself, and die in peace." I should 
 put the word " God " instead of " Nature." Yet I could say, " God 
 in Nature," and be well content. Of course I am here guarding 
 myself against absolute Pantheism, as I would, on the other side, 
 against Deism. I am merely stating the faith of pure Theism, 
 though I should claim the right to term it pure Christian Theism. 
 But if we have kept near together up to this point, you imply that 
 here our paths diverge, and you wonder that intelligent persons 
 can hold the Christian beliefs which we entertain. 
 
 I suppose the difficulty with those who discuss these points often 
 is that each side imagines the other side to hold what it does not, 
 and does not understand the opinions the other does hold. 
 
 I should be glad if I could show, at least, how closely our Chris- 
 tian beliefs are connected with what you accept. 
 
 You say : " The Religion of Nature, including Man, ... to me 
 forms the highest, the noblest, Ideal of the Infinite Person, the 
 soul of all that I can desire." I suppose you would not object to 
 
92 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 the expression that the Universe, or Nature, is the Revelation of 
 God. Now, is it not true that tlie highest thing in the Universe, 
 looked at as such a revelation, is Man ? Man is the highest revela- 
 tion of God ; but the highest thing in Man is character ; and the 
 highest character is righteous, forgiving, self-sacrificing Love. 
 The holy life of Love is the highest revelation of God. Now, the 
 Christian claim is simply this : that Jesus of Nazareth presents us 
 this holy life of love, and that he is, therefore, the Revelation of 
 God, the Son of God, who is Love. You may question or deny 
 this claim on historical or other grounds ; but I do not see liow 
 you can regard it as either superstitious, unintelligible, or unreason- 
 able. We are convinced that in his life and workings Jesus is ab- 
 solutely unique among the sons of men ; that he was sinless and 
 morally perfect, the supreme example of history ; that he made un- 
 precedented claims as to his authority, kingdom, and relations 
 with God ; that he has, in accordance with those claims, exerted 
 an unparalleled influence for good upon the world through eighteen 
 centuries. This supremacy of character, we believe, carries with 
 it a Lordship over Man and also over Nature. Being Lord of Life, 
 it is not strange to us that he should be Lord over Death ; and the 
 Resurrection would to us be no surprise, even did we not find it 
 supported, as we believe, by irrefutable testimony. The whole 
 structure rests upon the original claim of a unique, a Divine, cliar- 
 acter, — the Revelation of God. As God manifests Himself in the 
 Universe, so here we find Him manifest in the flesh, — " the Word 
 made flesh." When you protest against the idea of "the God of 
 this mighty Universe " entering into human conditions, etc., we 
 ask. What else would you have ? All this simply says that in 
 giving His supreme Self-Revelation in a Divine character — or, as 
 I like to say, in a Divine-human life — God wrought by natural 
 processes, and put His revelation into human terms. Why should 
 not the holy life of Love that was to reveal God to men be born as 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 93 
 
 a child, and consecrate human life by passing through its various 
 conditions ? If the beauty of God is embodied in a flower, why 
 not His Love in a Son of Man ? If God's Self-Revelation is to be 
 localized at all, why not on " this speck of earth " as well as on 
 any other speck ? What are physical dimensions to the soul? If 
 humanity is God's highest work, why might He not specially mani- 
 fest Himself to Humanity in a human life ? 
 
 I have visited heathen nations, and learned something of their 
 philosophies and practices, and I must say that I cannot find their 
 philosophies absurd. They seem to me often as dreaming peoples 
 who catch fleeting visions of what others have in waking reality. 
 Their incarnations spring from the natural and, as I believe, pro- 
 phetic longings of the heart to see God ; they hint of Christialiity 
 as the grotesque shadows do of dawn, — only these incarnations 
 are seldom either holy or historic. 
 
 But the Bible ! You wonder that we can receive that as we do. 
 This is somewhat the way in which I receive it : I believe not only 
 in Jesus as the historic Man of Revelation, but in the Jews as the 
 historic People of Revelation. Not as a good people ; on the con- 
 trary, as stupid, perverse, wilful, but as displaying in their history 
 the working of God's rule of Righteousness in a way as unique, at 
 least, among all peoples as the Greeks in their display of God's 
 way of Beauty. Now, the Bible is precious to me as containing 
 the records of this Self-Revelation of God in History. I cannot 
 help believing that its historians, psalmists, prophets, apostles, 
 evangelists, produced here a sacred library that is of monumental 
 and perpetual importance in the matters of religion. As a matter 
 of fact it is the chief inspiration of the religious life of Christen- 
 dom to-day, and lias been for centuries ; and to me the co-ordina- 
 tion of its parts indicates a special design as much as the harmony 
 in the cathedral of Cologne. But the great thing is the Divine 
 life which is at the heart of the book, as it is at the heart of 
 Christendom. 
 
94 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 What I have written seems to me the essence of the Christian 
 Faith. It is, doubtless, overlaid with many errors and supersti- 
 tions, but this is the saving substance ; and for this substance I do 
 claim two things. First, it is not unreasonable. Let it be true or 
 false, yet it is a plain, definite system of thought and faith, based 
 on alleged historic events. It is nothing that is not consistent 
 with the highest intelligence and the purest practice. Second, the 
 character of Christ, who is Christianity, is so pure and command- 
 ing, the occurrences connected with his life are so extraordinary, 
 the impression he has made upon mankind is so deep and wide- 
 spread, that he justly claims, as he more and more receives, the 
 reverence, the imitation, the patient study of the wisest and the 
 best, as well as of the worst and lowest. Interpret him as we may, 
 he is in the world as one of its moving powers and ruling 
 principles. As a matter of fact, I have learned to know God 
 through Rim. He has shown me and mine God's Fatherhood, 
 forgiveness and immanence. He has formed for me the Brother- 
 hood of Man. He is my Life. I cannot define him, but he has 
 defined God to me. And what is best in those I know usually 
 flows from him, always conforms to him, so that they, too, become 
 to me, in character, revelations of God. 
 
 I am keenly alive to the movements of science and criticism. 
 They have changed many definitions, and undermined many 
 philosophies and theologies, but I do not see that they have changed 
 one fact in the Christian faith. They have only swept away 
 theories to bring us in closer contact with eternal realities. 
 
 And, when I or mine go out from this life into the great Beyond, 
 I tliink we have something even surer and vastly more loving to 
 which to intrust ourselves than the bosom of Nature. I want no 
 dearer, grander example, no closer companionship with which to 
 go forth, than that of Christ. I commit myself to his guidance, 
 sure that he " came irom the Father," sure that he will bring me 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 95 
 
 to the Father. And as I believe that he leads many whose eyes 
 are holden from seeing him, so my own confidence is that you and 
 some like you, who seek God, are being led by him, and are to be 
 more and more his disciples. 
 
 I have written much at length, but it has been witli loving 
 thoughts of my mother's dear friend, whose name has been one of 
 our household words. You may be sure that no words of yours 
 can shock us. It is only irreverence that should shock, and truth- 
 seekers must speak freely together. Some day we shall surely 
 " know as we are known." 
 
 With respectful and affectionate regards, 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 Edward A. Lawrence. 
 
 P. S. Browning's poem, " Saul," expresses at its close what I 
 take to be the Christian philosophy of the Incarnation. Are you 
 familiar with it ? It is a great poem. 
 
 MISS ARETHUSA HALL TO REV. EDWARD A. LAWRENCE. 
 
 164 Elm Street, Northampton, May 29, 1889. 
 
 My dear Mr. Lawrence, — Your letter of the 23d instant 
 impressed me so deeply with its kindness, its candor, its broad, 
 catholic spirit that I could hardly refrain from taking my pen at 
 once in reply. 
 
 Yes, I feel that we are substantially upon the same " Rock," — 
 that Rock which is at the foundation of all religions, and which 
 forms the basis of that sympathy of religions which should exist. 
 The human soul, from its very nature, seeks after God, and is not 
 satisfied till it finds something to rest upon. But this something 
 
96 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 varies according to the conditions of inheritance, education, and 
 the light of science. If eacli with earnest seeking does his best, I 
 don't see what more can be required. 
 
 Now as to tlie " Religion of Nature." My terms of expression 
 were not explicit, yet you very well guessed my meaning. Yet I 
 think we differ in regard to the " relationship " between God and 
 what is called Nature. And first, let me say, this earth, in my 
 highest thought, holds but a very limited place in what I take in as 
 Nature. And here let me give you, as what I am ready to accept, 
 Mr. F. E. Abbot's statement at the commencement of a series of 
 articles in " The New Ideal," upon " The Philosophy of Free 
 Religion " : " The universe is known to us as at once infinite 
 machine, infinite organism, and infinite person, — as mechanical 
 in its apparent form and action, organic in its essential constitu- 
 tion, and personal in its innermost being ; it is the eternally self- 
 evolving and self-involving unity of the Absolute Real and the 
 Absolute Ideal in God, . , . and is the Ethical Realization of the 
 Infinite Divine Ideal, which reflects itself in the Finite Human 
 Ideal as the sun reflects itself in the dewdrop." 
 
 Now, this view does not make God so " distinct" from Nature as 
 your thought seems to be, but as entirely within Nature, and in no 
 sense outside of it, as the cause of an effect. So you see the ful- 
 ness of my meaning when I said the " bosom of Nature." 
 I might say the bosom of God, and express my own thought ; but 
 the expression carries generally a very different sense. My aim, 
 these late years, has been to find God as revealed in Nature, 
 including its largest sense, and to square my life, both pliysically 
 and morally, by the laws inherent in the Universe. And with this 
 comes, in my spirit, the emotion of religion in its deepest, most 
 reverential sense, ■ — a sense too deep for words, but one of yearning 
 for union with the Infinite Ideal, and for the utmost possible attain- 
 ment of the Infinite Perfection. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 97 
 
 As you say, " our patlis diverge " when we come to the founda- 
 tion of our beliefs. It all turns upon this, ^whether we do or do 
 not believe in the Bible as a special revelation from God. I must 
 say, frankly, that I do not consider it a revelation from him, in 
 any sense, differing in kind from the revelations of Nature in a 
 broad sense ; and especially as given by other highest souls that 
 have lived, and who, as well as the writers of the Bible, have given 
 us their best thoughts. Of these latter, there have been many, 
 scattered through the ages and nations ; and, at the present day, it 
 seems to me that the truth-loving and truth-seeking souls, with the 
 aid which advanced science gives, are more likely to arrive at divine 
 knowledge than any writer of the Bible. I appreciate all the gran- 
 deur and excellence of religious thought and emotion contained in 
 the Bible, but consider it purely a human production. As to its 
 theology or system of doctrines, I cannot consider it any authority. 
 With the view of the Bible, the position of Jesus, as an autliority, 
 of course stands or falls. Thus to me, he was not exceptional in 
 kind from other men. In character, he may well be placed among 
 the highest Sons of God that have been produced in the humair 
 I cannot say that I see him to have been entirely free from the im- 
 perfections of the finite. For myself, I do not feel the need of any 
 one to come between me and God, any further than as helps, such as 
 you and other spirits imbued with the divine may be to me. I find 
 God in vegetable and in animal nature, and especially in the 
 human, I know one who says he knows most of God through his 
 mother ; another, who said he knew most of God through what he 
 considered the exalted character of the lady whom he loved. 
 
 I know I touch upon a most tender point with you, when I 
 venture to put Jesus in the same category with purely unexcep- 
 tional human beings ; but I feel that you will see that it is a 
 reverence for what to me is truth, and that you have too much 
 religious philosophy to be disturbed or offended by it. 
 
 13 
 
98 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 You are true and consistent with your own thought, and I 
 respect your fidelity. You can no otherwise, neither can I than I 
 do. And your rare liberality and ingenuousness toward what to 
 you are my errors is to me very gratifying. . . . 
 
 With the kindest regard, 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Arethusa Hall. 
 
 REV. EDWARD A. LAWRENCE TO MISS ARETHUSA HALL. 
 
 Sing Sing, May 30, 1889. 
 
 My dear Miss Hall, — As I supposed, our conceptions of the 
 central mystery of Life are certainly allied, our trust is the same. 
 I was glad to get the clear statement you quote from Mr. Abbot. 
 It certainly offers an inspiring faith. If in this eternal process of 
 the universe it differentiates itself into subject and object, the way 
 is thereby opened for the distinctness of which I spoke, and for the 
 thought of God and Nature. The whole conception I could accept as 
 one of the alternative, yet complementary, statements of which every 
 one is greatly suggestive, no one nor all combined exhaustive. 
 And I should like to know more of Mr. Abbot's writings. 
 
 I am more concerned to write of the point at which our views 
 take a wider divergence. I see that you understand my aim, which is 
 not at all controversial or proselytizing, but solely in the interest of 
 mutual understanding. It is not my care to represent " our view " 
 as the true one or the only one. But I was impressed by your 
 wonder that intelligent, candid people could hold to that which to 
 you seems so deeply tinged with superstition, and so unreasonable. 
 And I am deeply concerned to speak of the Christian Faith as that 
 which is altogether reasonable and the foe of superstition, consist- 
 ent not only with the purest character, but with the keenest 
 intelligence. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 99 
 
 It is in regard to the Bible, 1 judge, that you wonder most at the 
 Christian views. But just here I suspect that you attribute quite 
 innocently, and not without some reason, views which can in no 
 sense be called a part of the Christian Faith. 
 
 The Bible is to me, indeed, the Book of Books. I believe that 
 the Hebrews had, under divine appointment for their work of right- 
 eousness, as marked a genius, or inspiration, as you may clioose to 
 call it, for religious insight and expression, as the Greeks had for 
 the insight and expression of art and philosophy. The results of 
 one seem to me as absolutely unique as those of the other. I no 
 more expect to see the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, John, Paul, equalled 
 in their line, than Homer, Phidias, Plato, in theirs. I find much 
 that is sublime and religious in other ancient sacred books, but 
 nothing, as a whole, equal to these books. The Hebrews combine, 
 in the most surprising way, sobriety and sublimity, the historic and 
 the imaginative sense. They even present the germs of universal 
 history. And this historic sense, which makes Christianity an his- 
 toric religion, is amazingly lacking in all the great religious books 
 of which I know. 
 
 I do not believe the Bible to be a book of Science, either natural 
 or religious. I am not concerned to defend or assert its infallibil- 
 ity. And I do not see how any advance of Science is to displace 
 or overtop the Bible, any more than Phidias. Science has its own 
 glorious work to do for us, yet more in us, dispelling our errors. 
 I do not see how it should produce aught to take the place of the 
 23d Psalm, or the 139th, or of the Gospel of John. All I can say 
 is that when, as a book, not of philosophy, but of religion, any- 
 thing more inspiring, more humbling, comforting, transforming 
 than the Bible appears, I want to know it and use it, and thank 
 God for a yet grander gift to man. 
 
 Yet, with all this, I would not in any strict sense say that I hold 
 the Bible as a Revelation of God, liut rather as a record of that 
 
100 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Eevelation. I do not think " all turns on this." The Christian 
 Faith grasps the revealed character of God. Character reveals 
 itself in life rather than in documents. Here, primarily in a peo- 
 ple, centrally and supremely in a person. Christ is to me the Re- 
 velation of God, the end in a long, self-revealing process. The 
 Bible records that Eevelation. I accept it as a faithful record, and 
 would be satisfied to claim for it the same degree of credit that is 
 accorded to trustworthy historians. I do not turn aside to con- 
 sider -the mooted questions of Higher Criticism. All I would now 
 insist on is that the unhistoric character of the Bible, as a whole, 
 has not been shown in any such way as to impeach the intelligence 
 of those who hold to its substantial integrity, or render them liable 
 to the charge of superstition. 
 
 But, you may say, " These are your individual views. The great 
 mass of Christians think differently." Is it too much to ask that 
 the Christian Paith be judged, not by any individual opinions or 
 sectarian views, but by the great Catholic Creeds of the Church ? 
 The briefest, most common statement is the Apostles' Creed. It 
 contains not one syllable or suggestion about the Bible. Nor does 
 the Nicene Creed. Nor any of the Catholic Creeds, if I remember 
 rightly. But they contain the Christian Faith for which we stand. 
 The exigencies of the Protestant Reformation caused the later Re- 
 formers to press forward the Book into a somewhat abnormal posi- 
 tion, to offset the claims of the Pope. But that does not affect the 
 substance of the Christian Faith, which lays hold of a Person. 
 
 I do not quite understand what you mean when you say that you 
 consider the Bible purely a human production. I should suppose that 
 we should both say that nothing good is purely a human production. 
 The human and divine so intermingle that I cannot separate them, 
 least of all in religious art and utterance. I do not regard the 
 Bible as presenting a theology or a system of doctrine any more 
 than the earth presents a system of geology, or Phidias a system 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 101 
 
 of art. It presents a vast number of historic and spiritual facts 
 and emotions, a few fragmentary conclusions, or doctrines, as in 
 Paul's writings. Mainly it presents a Life. 
 
 And so far from believing that " with the view of the Bible the 
 position of Jesus, as an authority, stands or falls," I hold just the 
 reverse. The authority of Jesus, for me, determines my views of 
 the Bible. Simply granting its faithful, historic character, it pre- 
 sents to me Jesus. Then I judge of the Bible by him, his words, 
 deeds, spirit. It is little to me apart from Christ, or except as 
 viewed through Christ. With the view of Christ it is that the 
 Christian Faith, and all Christian theology and views, stand or 
 fall. And his authority springs, for me, not so much out of his 
 relations, as from the character, the Person. 
 
 Of him I will not say more. Our real difference would lie in 
 the interpretation of Jesus. Only I should say thaf no honest, 
 reverent expression of doubt concerning him should be offensive 
 to a follower of his. It can only cause the longing that the doubt- 
 ing Thomas may see his Lord in all his glory. 
 
 But one point more. You do, apparently, recognize the need 
 men have of " helps " to come between them and God, and refer 
 to those who have known most of God through a mother or a lady- 
 love. I presume you would not object to the statement that we 
 know God at all only through His Revelation of Himself, and that 
 the whole universe is a revelation of Him. But that which is 
 highest in the Universe must most clearly and fully reveal Him. 
 Surely the highest in the Universe is Man, and the highest in Man 
 is Character, the highest in character Love. Just in so far, then, 
 as Christ seemed to one to present or approach the perfection of 
 divine character of self-sacrificing love, at once universal and par- 
 ticular, would you not say that to such a one Christ presented the 
 supreme Revelation of God ? that through Christ, par excellence, 
 such a one knew God ? But all Christians do hold it as of the 
 
102 CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 innermost essence of their faith that Christ does embody divine 
 character in perfect love. To them, therefore, there would be an 
 absolute need of Christ between them and God, as The Way^ the 
 medmm of revelation, knowledge, communion. As he said, " He 
 that hath seen me, hath seen the Father." 
 
 May I say, in closing this long letter, that I have several times 
 had this experience ? I have met those who in the course of life 
 have undergone a reaction from their early views, and have sought 
 rest elsewhere, finding it or not as the case may be. Those early 
 views were the mechanical, exaggerated views of some sect or set 
 of people from whom they had been imbibed, rather than the out- 
 come of the Bible or the great creeds. Especially have they been 
 mechanical views of the Bible. And ever afterwards they conceive 
 of Christianity, most naturally but mistakenly, under the guise in 
 which they have rejected it. Yet, first and last, it is something 
 quite different from what they take it to be. Local opinions, tem- 
 porary teachings, have hidden the faith of Christ from their sight, 
 and they, perhaps, never see its essence as the simple, humble, 
 believing heart accepts it. 
 
 It has seemed to me that this may in some sense be your case. 
 Certainly you appear to be meeting views of the Bible which I do 
 not consider a part of the Christian Faith, which are not my views, 
 which are in no Catholic creed. . . . 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Edward A. Lawrence. 
 
 MISS ARETHUSA HALL TO REV. EDWARD A. LAWRENCE. 
 
 164 Elm Street, Northampton, June 16, 1889. 
 
 Dear Mr. Lawrence, — Your letter, with its clear statement of 
 views and its kindly spirit, was received on the morning of the day 
 
CORRESPONDENCE ON CHRISTIANITY. 103 
 
 on which your mother came to me. You can understand how fully 
 that week was occupied. 
 
 I think I understand fully your principles of faith. They are 
 such as have been familiar to me from my early years. My stand- 
 points are different now, but, by different paths,! think we lead up 
 to the same spiritual results. I think we must each and all be 
 faithful to our convictions of truth, after first seeking with our 
 best powers to know what is truth. My views in regard to Jesus 
 differ from yours. I do regard him as a " revelation of God," but 
 in no exceptional sense as differing from other great souls that 
 have appeared upon earth, and, of course, as giving him no au- 
 thority, differing in kind, from that of others. And so I regard 
 Christianity as only another form which the religious sentiment in 
 man has taken, higher and purer, certainly, than any other, but 
 not the ideally perfect which the world may be yet destined to see. 
 It has had the advantage of connection with a higher civilization.' 
 But as science reveals more and more of God, with the eternal 
 laws of the universe, both moral and spiritual, as well as physical, 
 religious views, it seems to me, must be greatly enlarged and gen- 
 eralized and freed from the limitations of one globe or one man 
 upon that globe. 
 
 Mr. Abbot has a printed discourse, entitled " The God of Science " 
 He has also a volume, " Scientific Theism." Both are mere frag- 
 ments of a work on which he is laboring, a comprehensive, scien- 
 tific philosophy which leads up to the most high and adoring 
 conceptions of God as the all-pervading, immanent Life, Spirit 
 Intelhgent Principle, and Person of the whole Universe. 
 With appreciation of your truly catholic spirit, 
 Yours sincerely, 
 
 A. Hall. 
 
essay; 
 
 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 BY MISS A. HALL. 
 
 " \ T /HAT can be done to lift our homes off the plane of mere 
 V V material provision and physical drudgery, and infuse into 
 them a stronger element of intellectual and moral purpose ? What 
 can be done to elevate society above its present intellectual and 
 moral barrenness, and make it fruitful in stimulus to mental effort 
 and to higher achievements in character and life ? " 
 
 These questions, asked in " Tlie Report of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Free Religious Association " for 1868, are not the 
 least among the topics suggested for considerate action as objects 
 of the Association. The first may, indeed, claim to be the great- 
 est, as lying at the foundation of all moral progress and social im- 
 provement, since the influences of the home do more than any 
 other in making men and women what they are. 
 
 But here, at the outset, we are met with radical evils and dif- 
 ficulties hard to overcome. We should naturally appeal to the 
 heads of families, and address ourselves to them, to make homes 
 what they should be. Yet here lies the first trouble. They them- 
 selves have not been born rightly, nor brought up rightly ; and, as 
 
 1 Reprinted from " The Radical " for January, 1872. 
 14 
 
106 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 in the case of original sin, run back as far as we may for a pure 
 source to start with, we find the disqualification everywhere. We 
 have no firm point on which to rest the working lever. We have 
 few, if any, right fathers and mothers to begin with. All men 
 and women have, through natural inheritance, through force of 
 habit and example, so much to do for themselves individually to 
 attain to their own moral ideal, and suffer so many lapses in their 
 attempts, that their efforts to regulate others aright are, for this 
 reason, greatly paralyzed. But, notwithstanding these great disad- 
 vantages as to the starting-point, something undoubtedly can be 
 effected by those just assuming the position of heads of the home ; 
 though several generations alone of careful example and training 
 will suffice, in any good degree, to realize the just ideal of home 
 and social life. As contributing to this end, some of the more 
 obvious points to which attention should be directed may be 
 suggested. 
 
 And first, let those who are to be the united head of a family 
 see to it that they form a true marriage, in the highest, holiest 
 sense of the term. Let not mere fancy, with scarcely knowing the 
 reason why, decide a question on which so much is pending. Let 
 no unworthy considerations come in for a share in the decision. 
 Let love, in its purest essence, begin in an understanding sym- 
 pathy of soul on subjects the highest that can be presented to 
 human interest. Let ideas, rather than mere emotions, not to say 
 sensations, be the basis of this sympathy. Let there be an ele- 
 vated plane of thought and interest and spiritual aspiration 
 stretching out into tlie infinite, and enduring as the eternities, 
 where their souls shall meet and blend, ever soaring onward and 
 upward in perpetual union. 
 
 In order to secure this, the physical temperament and condition 
 of each, regarded both separately and in relation to the other, 
 should be carefully considered. The matter of temperament alone 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 107 
 
 may absolutely unfit persons for living together harmoniously, 
 with no fault, on either side, but that of want of adaptation. And 
 then, too, without a sound state of the physical system, who shall an- 
 swer for the nervous irritations and little petulances that may arise 
 to mar the beauty of daily life, and now and then infuse a drop 
 of bitterness where sweetness alone should characterize the cup 
 of existence ? And well it were if the evil stopped here, and the 
 well-being of offspring were not so deeply involved. It is seri- 
 ously to be questioned whether those who cannot impart sound 
 constitutions of body and mind to their children have morally any 
 right to become parents. What a sad comment upon human in- 
 consistency and moral insensibility, that, while men are giving 
 so much thought to the improvement of breeds of domestic ani- 
 mals, they are so utterly obtuse and unconcerned in regard to the 
 laws that have a bearing upon human progeny ! Thanks to some 
 earnest and enlightened minds of the present day, books are now 
 to be found which treat this subject in an instructive and dignified 
 manner, and impart in a judicious way that knowledge which con- 
 tributes towards the attainment of the so much needed boon, — 
 that of being horn well. This subject cannot be too sacredly 
 considered nor too conscientiously regarded by the agents in 
 this momentous result. 
 
 In the order of Nature it is the destiny of all to form the mar- 
 riage relation, and to become parents. This is well known ; in- 
 deed, it enters into the plans and purposes of parents for their 
 children, as well as into those of the young folks for themselves. 
 But how little does preparation for the weighty responsibilities 
 which marriage implies find place in the education and training of 
 sons and daughters ! If any business profession is chosen for 
 them, everything is made to bear upon qualifications for success. 
 The choicest advantages, not only of our own country, but of Eu- 
 rope, must be sought ; while scarcely a thought is given to fitting 
 
108 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 them for the peculiar duties of a vocation transcending all others 
 in the magnitude of its results for good or for evil ; and, as a gen- 
 eral thing, it is the last consideration that enters the minds of the 
 parties themselves, whose chief end in life is to secure a wedded 
 alliance, to prepare themselves for the duties which it brings in 
 its train. 
 
 Young men feel the necessity of making money, — which surely 
 is well in its way ; they seek to make their toilets unexceptionable 
 and their manners attractive ; they make themselves acquainted 
 with all the characters of the novels of the day, and can speak 
 glibly of the merits of all performers in opera or drama. But how 
 much do they strive to store their minds with high thoughts? 
 How much do they study human nature, — their own and that of 
 woman ? How much do they cultivate self-control and all the 
 finer elements of character which should be brought into requisi- 
 tion in domestic life, and which constitute its charm ? 
 
 Young women do still less to prepare themselves for their pro- 
 spective relations and duties in life. Melancholy indeed it is to see 
 how the years before marriage of most of our young ladies are 
 spent. The studies of school days have generally very little prac- 
 tical bearing upon their characters ; and, after leaving school, dress, 
 parties, fashion, novels, and gossip often engross the greater part 
 of their time until the wedding-day. And then what an avalanche 
 of cares and responsibilities falls upon them, all unfitted as they 
 are to meet them ! To the multiform duties of housekeeping may 
 soon be added what, to their perhaps enervated physical systems, 
 becomes the almost paralyzing effects of approaching maternity. 
 No wonder if thus early are laid the foundations of that domestic 
 unhappiness which, after they have dragged out in misery all those 
 earlier years that ought to be among the best in life, results in 
 what is denominated " incompatibility of temper," and is finally 
 made the ground of divorce ! And of the product of such unions 
 
HOME. AND SOCIAL LIFE. 109 
 
 what can be expected towards the furtherance of moral or social 
 progress ? 
 
 Yet here is the chief place to begin. It is claimed by many who 
 have given great attention to the subject, and probably with wis- 
 dom, that boys and girls, young men and young women, should be 
 educated together ; that up to the point where each seeks out a 
 professional career, or one indicated by peculiar adaptedness or 
 genius, they should have the same mental training. What, then, 
 are some of the most obvious studies which they should pursue in 
 common to fit them for the duties and pleasures of " home and 
 social life " ? 
 
 Perhaps none on this list should stand higher than the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge pertaining to the laws which regulate the highest 
 well-being of the body and the spirit. Let the structure and the 
 functions of the human frame, with its laws of health, be well un- 
 derstood. This, of course, will embrace the sciences of anatomy, 
 physiology, and hygiene, — sciences which, in schools generally, 
 are very much neglected. The consequence is, that, having no 
 knowledge of the principles underlying these subjects, young peo- 
 ple go on in life transgressing the inflexible laws of their being, as 
 to eating, drinking, rest, exercise, recreation, exposures, and indul- 
 gences, with no thought of the inevitable evils they are with such 
 certainty entailing upon themselves, and with entire disbelief and 
 disregard of the warnings of those who, by their own bitter experi- 
 ence, if in no other way, have learned better. In this connection, 
 and in a way as judicious as its sacredness claims, should be com- 
 municated, as an integral part of physiological study, a knowledge 
 of those divinely ordained relations of sex which exist throughout 
 all departments of organized Nature. With undoubtedly right 
 motives, but from altogether mistaken judgment, the attempt has 
 usually been made by parents and educators studiously to withhold 
 and conceal from the young all information of this kind. The 
 
110 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 falsities and absurdities resorted to for this purpose would seem 
 simply ridiculous if they did not lead to results so serious and de- 
 plorable. The desire of knowledge respecting the objects of all the 
 senses is spontaneous and right, and, whatever the attempts to put 
 it down, it will assert itself. And in this department of legitimate 
 human interest, if the efforts of the inquiring mind of the young 
 are discountenanced and repelled in that direction where it would 
 be proper and safe for them to receive enlightenment, they will 
 naturally seek and find it in sources with which are mingled im- 
 purity and debasement. Besides this moral result so much to be 
 deprecated, considerations of health, of the physical condition gen- 
 erally, demand that this species of information should not be 
 ignored in instructions to the young ; and scientifically and wisely 
 imparted, the tendency would be to purify and elevate, and to con- 
 tribute in no inconsiderable degree to the ennoblement of home 
 and of social life. 
 
 Attention to the laws of mind, so far as their true philosophy 
 can be understood, and also to the relations between the body and 
 the mind, is of great importance in fitting for the duties of home 
 and society. Prom ignorance of the principles which regulate 
 the actions of the mind, how many mistakes, misunderstandings, 
 and consequent bickerings, angry words and deeds, and, finally, 
 estrangements, arise in families, and among those who should be 
 friends ! How much irritation and discomfort are caused simply 
 by an abnormal state of the brain and nerves, — a deplorable moral 
 result from purely physical causes which suitable knowledge might 
 have prevented, or, at least, by a proper estimate of the philosophy 
 of the case, might very much ameliorate the sufferings of all 
 concerned. 
 
 Next in the order of sciences, as having a bearing upon this 
 subject, it may be that no one has a greater claim to attention than 
 that of chemistry, particularly in its organic and culinary depart- 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. Ill 
 
 ments. A knowledge of the principles involved in these is of far 
 greater practical value than is generally recognized. Much might 
 be gained simply from familiarity with the laws which govern the 
 evolution and application of heat. But a far greater advantage 
 would result, both to health and to the sense of taste, from 
 acquaintance with the laws of chemical action upon edible sub- 
 stances. The fact alone that " the properties which cliaracterize 
 bodies when separate are changed or destroyed by their com- 
 bination," if understood, would save from many deleterious com- 
 pounds that are placed upon the table. Regard also to the fact 
 that the elements of substances unite only in definite proportions, 
 as well as attention to the principles of fermentation, would be 
 attended with a like result. It would be seen in the just appor- 
 tionment of acids to alkalies, and the furnishing of such bread as 
 would be free from the incipient elements of moral evil. Knowl- 
 edge of the chemistry of practical domestic life would lead to 
 more care as to the temperature suitable to the human body ; the 
 purity of air necessary to be maintained by proper ventilation, and 
 by the removal of substances which generate noxious gases ; aid 
 would be given in the removal of spots and stains, in the setting of 
 fading colors, and increased facility imparted in many ways in 
 lightening the labors of the house and its accompaniments. 
 
 It has been said that " a woman cannot have too much arith- 
 metic." The remark has probably been called forth by the fact 
 that, as a whole, women pay so little attention to the importance of 
 computation. They are not apt to consider how the debt and 
 credit columns stand related to each other. They do not keep 
 accounts. They rush on to the procuring of what they think they 
 must have, or what a false standard of respectability requires them 
 to have, with no idea how the balance is to be adjusted. The 
 science of values, the doctrine and practice of economy, cannot be 
 overestimated in its bearing upon the welfare of the family. A 
 
112 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 good knowledge of bookkeeping, thoroughly applied, as well as 
 facility in operating with figures, on the part of woman and man, 
 contributes largely to the prosperity of the home, and, through 
 that, to its intellectual and moral elevation. From the principles 
 of the higher mathematics, too, axioms may be learned, formulas 
 obtained, and truths arrived at, which will be of service in helping 
 forward the labors of the household, and in giving agreeable forms 
 and proportions to the eye. 
 
 Natural philosophy, with its laws of motion, of the operation of 
 forces, of mechanical powers, pressure, resistance, etc., may be 
 brought to bear in a variety of ways upon the affairs of home life. 
 By a skilful use of only the saw, hammer, and screwdriver, such as 
 may well be acquired by every woman, as well as man, much may 
 be done towards giving an air of tidines^ and convenience. One 
 gains, too, a great ascendency over the materials with which he has 
 to deal by simply understanding the amount of means requisite to 
 the production of any desired end. Much time, strength, and 
 trouble are needlessly expended by want of knowledge on this 
 point. * 
 
 While the sciences already referred to may be claimed to hold 
 the first place as to practical value in home life, it is not intended 
 to intimate that acquisitions in the wide and varied fields of knowl- 
 edge in other departments are not of high importance. What 
 food for thought, for enthusiasm, for cheerfulness, in daily life, 
 may be drawn from familiarity with the truths of natural science, 
 the objects of which present themselves to the eye on every hand ! 
 How much good taste, formed from acquaintance with the principles 
 of drawing, painting, and music, may, even with small means, con- 
 tribute to the attractiveness of home and its surroundings ! Truly 
 there is no knowledge which would not bring its tribute especially 
 to conversation, that much-neglected art, which might be made the 
 central charm of all, and to which familiarity with languages. 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 113 
 
 history, and poetry would bring so much. And, in this general sum- 
 mary, the attainment of accomplished elocution surely should not 
 be omitted. When we consider the comparatively little expense of 
 time and money at which this art may be acquired, it may be said 
 to hold a more important rank in the list of accomplishments 
 than that of music. Books are always at command, and can 
 be taken to any place ; and when the sense of the writer, with 
 every delicate shade of thought and sentiment, is interpreted to 
 the ear so. that his very spirit in its highest states of inspiration 
 communicates itself to ours, and blends with what is most cher- 
 ished in our own inward being, what more can be done for us by 
 any sphere of art ? And this so inexpensive, and so much within 
 the reach of all ! 
 
 But, not to go farther into details of studies most important in 
 qualifying for the duties which fall upon the heads of families, 
 suppose the home already established : what are some of the means 
 by which " to lift it off the plane of material provision and 
 physical drudgery, and infuse into it a stronger element of 
 intellectual and moral purpose " ? And here, while there should 
 always exist between the beads of the family union, sympathy, and 
 co-operation in all things, the chief responsibility falls upon the 
 wife and mother. 
 
 Perhaps, among the failures to realize what the home should be, 
 there is no one thing productive of more discomfort, annoyance, 
 and trouble than that connected with servants, in those families 
 dependent upon them. First of all, on the part of the mistress, is 
 the want of qualification for her position. She does not understand 
 the details of the different departments of her work so that she 
 could perform them herself ; consequently, she is liable to be 
 unreasonable in her demands. If things are not well done, 
 acquainted as she is with results only, she cannot place her finger 
 on the true cause of failure, and give definite instruction as to the 
 
 15 
 
114 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 remedy. And, worse than all, not knowing herself how practically 
 to carry on the affairs of her household, she is dependent upon her 
 servants, and becomes their slave. The servant well understands 
 this, and puts on the airs of mistress. Besides all this, an 
 antagonism grows up between the two. There is not that sense of 
 kindly relationship that should subsist, and which would insure 
 harmonious and concerted action. Self-interest, no less than be- 
 nevolence, demands that servants should be, in a sense, adopted 
 into the family ; that they should feel cared for, and their interests 
 helped forward, by the superior intelligence of whose who employ 
 them. Then, too, if women would do more with their own hands, 
 it would help to do away with the line of distinction between the 
 rich and the poor, to many so painful. At the same time it would 
 contribute much towards banishing that languor and helplessness 
 so prevalent among women. There is no exercise so conducive to 
 the health of women as the multifarious movement of muscle 
 brought into exercise by housework. Not only mothers, but 
 daughters, would find their physical condition improved by taking 
 a certain portion of domestic labor themselves, and thus attaining 
 to greater cheerfulness, buoyancy, and relief from ennui. The 
 notion that any disgrace is attached to manual labor, or that true 
 refinement and delicacy do not always find their own level, is too 
 weak and foolish to be allowed any consideration. As though the 
 homeliest and humblest work could not be ennobled by the spirit 
 in which it is done ! The fact of doing anything well, in the best 
 manner, brings its own reward in exhilaration of feeling. And, to 
 the mind instructed in principles, in cause and effect, in capacities 
 and limitations, there is much to interest, something even to 
 charm, in the simplest and most homely operations, as illustrated 
 in the " Song of the Suds : " — 
 
 " Queen of the tub, I merrily sing 
 While the white foam rises high, 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 115 
 
 And sturdily wash and rinse and wring, 
 
 And fasten the clothes to dry; 
 And out in the free, fresh air they swing. 
 
 Under the summer sky." 
 
 Where do we often find more poetical elements than are here 
 suggested ? 
 
 Considerations connected with food stand among those of first 
 importance to the welfare of the home. We pray, " Give us this 
 day our daily bread ; " and in Agur's prayer he asks, " Feed me 
 with food convenient for me." In agony of stomach, how often 
 has this latter prayer been wrung from us ! And if, as has been 
 said, " Labor is prayer," the first condition to be complied with, in 
 seeking our daily bread, is bodily exercise of some kind that creates 
 the need of food and prepares for its digestion. But, not to 
 dwell on this point now, let us remark how little regard to health 
 has a place in preparations for the table. To a great extent, this 
 seems to be the last thing thought of. Witb the poor and unedu- 
 cated, it may be entirely the result of ignorance ; but with the 
 wealthy, and those who ought to know better, there is less extenua- 
 tion of the fault, — it might, perhaps, well be said the crime. In- 
 stead of making it the chief study in the daily meals to set before 
 the family good, simple, wholesome, and, in the long run, more 
 relishing food, the ambition is rather to bring forward rare and 
 elaborate compounds, so mixed up and concentrated, so disguised 
 and metamorphosed, that the sweet, pure, and natural simples of 
 which they are composed can hardly be detected. That it is an 
 indigestible mass does not enter into the account ; nor that variety 
 of tastes is so much circumscribed by the promiscuous jumble. 
 How much better for the nourishment of the body to take from 
 Nature the products designed for our sustenance in the form she 
 gives them to us ! And where the appetite has not become de- 
 praved, how much greater the relish and zest for food when the 
 
116 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 individual taste of a substance can be appreciated apart from all 
 admixtures ! 
 
 But the evils of this course do not stop with the poisonous effects 
 produced upon the regular family, they greatly interfere with 
 that social intercourse which, rightly conducted, would add such a 
 charm and value to life. Instead of welcoming a friend, or friends, 
 at any time to a seat at the family table, and to such table furniture 
 and fare as happens to be the order of the meal, seasons of social 
 intercourse, whether the visitors be of the celestial order or not, 
 must conform to the proverbial idea of " angels' visits." Great and 
 extraordinary culinary efforts must be made ; the spirit of the 
 hostess, servants, and, more or less, of the whole family^ is chafed 
 by extra exertion and solicitude. And perhaps, after all, the whole 
 result is marred, and the principal actors in the scene so thrown 
 off their balance, by disappointment in the results of their prepa- 
 ration, as to be in no condition favorable to the reception or 
 enjoyment of their guests. Or, if successful, how poor and pitiable 
 the pride that seeks gratification by such a species of display, in 
 which it is well if no little spice of rivalry also plays its part. And 
 what a miserable compliment to visitors to place the pampering of 
 the appetite so much in the foreground as to lose sight entirely of 
 any valuable results in coming together ! What a mockery 
 of everything that deserves the name of social enjoyrnent ! No 
 wonder that more cultivated and thoughtful persons withdraw 
 themselves from such gatherings, as involving a tiresome and dis- 
 tasteful waste of time and attention. 
 
 How different might be the result if people would spend more of 
 their leisure in the reading of books upon which they could groiv, 
 in earnest thought upon what they find put forth by others, and upon 
 their own observation on what comes within the sphere of their 
 notice, and then should meet to exchange and discuss ideas, with no 
 note of extra culinary preparation, but subordinating the material to 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 117 
 
 the spiritual in just proportion. In tlie matter of " calls," if peo- 
 ple would but express thoughts, ideas, sentiments, such as all must 
 have in a degree, and which to any well-regulated mind are the 
 things most dear ; instead of talking about persons, criticising, sur- 
 mising, and, from a prurient curiosity, seeking to penetrate into 
 the sacred arcana of their neiglibors, — what a saving from a 
 worse than waste of time ! To a person of refined taste and nice 
 moral sense it is truly excruciating to sit by and listen to a great 
 deal of the talk, not to say gossip, that goes on at " calls." They 
 hear interpretations given to doings, motives attributed to actions, 
 and judgments passed upon persons, with no sufficient knowledge 
 as a basis, — certainly, without information as to the interior modes 
 of looking at things, which go to make up the idiosyncrasies of 
 character, and within whose limits one is, in a degree, constrained 
 to act. Apart from the injustice done to the neighbor by such a 
 course, the injury in marring and belittling one's own soul is truly 
 fearful, — a due sense of which would lead to the utmost scrutiny of 
 feelings indulged in one's own breast, and to a rigid watchfulness 
 over the expressions of one's own lips. 
 
 It is stated that in England drawing clubs have been instituted, 
 which are intended for the cultivation of the pencil among ladies. 
 Each member produces an original drawing once a month, and 
 sends it to the president of the club, who is to decide on the merits 
 of each piece ; and the one who at the end of the year has sent in 
 the greatest number of superior sketches is rewarded with the chief 
 prize. Certain months are devoted to sketches from nature, and 
 others to studies from still life and figures. Writing clubs have 
 also been formed on a similar principle. Musical clubs might also 
 be established to equal advantage, under regulations suited to the 
 art. It is easy, at a glance, to perceive how much, in these and 
 similar ways, might be done " to elevate society above its present 
 intellectual and moral barrenness, and make it fruitful in stimulus 
 
118 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 to mental effort, and to higher achievements in character and 
 life." 
 
 But to secure the leisure necessary for the more elevating pur- 
 suits of life, it is absolutely imperative, not only that preparations 
 for the table should be more simple, while at the same time more 
 healthful and less expensive, but that there should be an entire re- 
 form as to dress. To the combined influence of slavery to fashion, 
 and false notions as to what constitutes respectability, may per- 
 haps be traced more of the evils which mar the peace of home than 
 to any other source. Tiie demand for money involved is, in this 
 case, an emphatic illustration of the Scripture assertion concerning 
 the love of it. It is felt in every department of living, as well as 
 that of dress and costly entertainments. Elegant buildings, rich 
 furniture, and splendid equipages all come into the list. And how 
 many are the men who, to gratify tlieir own ambition, or the van- 
 ity of their wives and daughters, toil early and late at their labors, 
 and are often beguiled into expenditures they can ill afford, which 
 embarrass their business, and perhaps tempt them into crime. 
 Harassed, conscience-stricken, and fearful of consequences, what 
 time or heart has such a man for taking home anything towards 
 promoting the higher life and joy of his family ? 
 
 That nice attention should be given to dress, so far from being 
 denied, is even advocated. But what is needed among ladies, in 
 i-eference to it, is more independence, more individuality, and more 
 good sense. Instead of having a multitude of dresses at the same 
 time, and following every new fashion got up from a restless desire 
 of change, joined to efforts of fashion-mongers and dry-goods 
 dealers to increase their pecuniary returns, however absurd and 
 ill adapted to individual form, — if each lady would study to adopt 
 a single style suited to her own figure and general bearing, one 
 harmonizing gracefully with her own physical and mental attributes, 
 and with due attention to tasteful results, she would at once become 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 119 
 
 emancipated from the overpowering dominion of fashion, while at 
 the same time establishing a pleasing correspondence between her 
 person and her character ; her clothes, the arrangement of her hair, 
 and all the et ceteras of her dress being part and parcel of herself. 
 This rule would not by any means prohibit a certain amount of 
 ornamentation. In this Nature sets us an example. She scollops, 
 fringes, ruffles, puffs, and embroiders to a great extent, but each 
 individual of her production is always true to itself. The pink, the 
 rose, the lily, the violet, are always found each in its own peculiar 
 garb, each beautiful in its own identity. 
 
 The great mischief of fashion in consuming so much time and 
 thought that might be better employed, to say nothing of its cor- 
 roding and dwarfing effects upon the better nature of its devotees, 
 lies mostly in its demands for perpetual change. A suit which 
 one year is made of a fabric or in a style most in vogue must be, 
 the next, laid aside or entirely remodelled. Here comes in, not 
 only fresh expense, but, what is worse, the wear and tear of nerve 
 and temper in the ripping and altering, which must often extend 
 to the whole series of garments worn in addition to those that ap- 
 pear on the outside. The long must be made short, or the short 
 long ; the full must be made narrow, or the narrow full, — hoops, 
 of course, extended or contracted to match ; sleeves close-fitting 
 or balloon-like ; over-garments varying in length from that of the 
 sailor-jacket to the whole length of the dress, not to add the mul- 
 tifold changes in the varying modes of trimming. What true 
 woman, in looking all this fairly in the face, can fail to hang her 
 head in shame, if conscious of the weakness of having been be- 
 guiled into such follies ? How much more self-respect and satis- 
 faction would she experience if she studied to make her dress the 
 exponent of nice moral sense and artistic taste ! For, if the true 
 principles of art are worthy of cultivation in any department, there 
 is no reason why in the matter of dress there should not be study 
 
120 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 to make it a fine art. The object of all art being to gratify the 
 aesthetic element inherent in our nature, it would seem nowhere 
 to have more legitimate scope for its exercise than in connection 
 with the human body, — where mind and matter, spirit and form, 
 are so closely conjoined. And it may be reckoned that among all 
 the refined enjoyments of life, that of rendering human beings 
 mutually attractive and pleasing in all that constitutes their indi- 
 viduality stands highest in its claims. 
 
 In its bearing upon the tranquillity of home life may be reck- 
 oned the practice of gift-giving, which, from being a spontaneous 
 offering of some simple or well-afforded article, has become such a 
 vice at this day. Many persons are made miserable on the ap- 
 proach of the Christmas holidays, of weddings or birthdays, either 
 by overworking upon some gift, by expending far more than their 
 means warrant, or by bitterness and chagrin because they cannot 
 make a present, as they think, sufficiently costly and magnificent ; 
 and the worst of it is that real kindness and good-will are not the 
 prompters. It is done merely from fashion, or, as persons have 
 often been heard to say, because " it is expected." And then, on 
 the other hand, the receiver is often made unhappy by the obliga- 
 tion imposed ; and the first thought is how a suitable offset can 
 be made. It causes a blush for human nature to record that some- 
 times the giving of gifts has been known to originate in the ex- 
 pectation of drawing forth something valuable in return. 
 
 Woman should especially qualify herself to be an intelligent 
 nurse. It has been said, and no doubt with truth, that " a good 
 nurse is more important than a doctor." At least, it may be affirmed 
 that good nursing, without a doctor, does more in most cases towards 
 the recovery of a patient than the doctor without the nurse. The 
 mother can understand better than any outside person the tem- 
 perament, habits, and idiosyncrasies of the members of her family ; 
 and with the proper knowledge of nervous action and physical 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE, 121 
 
 functions, she can apply simple remedies which will afford re- 
 lief and leave no ill effects in their train, instead of resorting 
 to the doctor for every ailment. She should also learn that 
 preventio7i is the great law to be understood and applied, and 
 should so order the habits of her family that they will seldom 
 become ill. 
 
 A still higher requisite in the mother of a family is that she 
 should be qualified to be the educator of children. They fall natu- 
 rally into her hands. By discriminating knowledge and judgment 
 she can perceive what in their nature needs to be repressed and 
 what developed. If guided by a wise experience, she can so mould 
 their characters and enstamp principles upon them as to fit them 
 for their own battle of life. She should be able judiciously to 
 direct their studies, and to determine wisely in the choice of 
 teachers and schools. Home influences upon the young are so 
 apparent that any teacher of discrimination can readily distin- 
 guish in his pupils whatever of mental or moral force has been 
 brought to bear upon them in daily life. 
 
 Every household should be so regulated as to give to each one 
 every day some leisure^ to be appropriated to individual self-collec- 
 tion and to improvement in the way best adapted to taste or in- 
 clination. This should be set down as a thing indispensable, — 
 as of more consequence to the individual, and through him or her 
 to the whole family, than any other thing that could be accom- 
 plished, however pressing it may seem. The trite saying that 
 " duty begins at home " is nowhere more pertinent than in its ap- 
 plication to one's self. It is a false estimate of morality that 
 leads one to love his neighbor better than himself, for in that case 
 he either does himself a wrong, — which is as criminal as to in- 
 flict wrong on another, — or he throws upon others the burden 
 of doing for him what he ought to do for himself, or of suffer- 
 ing through what he inflicts upon himself. To secure this 
 
 16 
 
122 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 necessary leisure a largeness of generalization and planning is 
 required. Every demand upon time must be made to hold its just 
 rank. The less, throughout, must be held subordinate to the 
 greater, and all in due proportion to legitimate claims. The ner- 
 vousness about trifling particulars, which no one but the person 
 exercised thereby would ever recognize or be the better for, must 
 be overcome. It is most melancholy to witness the narrowness 
 with which some housekeepers fritter away their time and temper 
 and stultify their minds. They become completely eaten up with 
 petty cares. As old age approaches, and their capacity for these 
 avocations ceases, what stores of knowledge or ideas have they to 
 fall back upon ? What to save them from insupportable ennui, 
 and their friends the tedium of vain efforts to entertain them ? 
 What " great thoughts," as Jean Paul suggests, " that they may 
 have something to die by " ? Pitiable indeed is it to witness 
 such a result of a long life ! 
 
 Much has been written and said on the subject of " Co-operative 
 Housekeeping," and it is believed that something of great value 
 towards the lightening of household labor, and the consequent 
 securing of more time for mental and moral progress, might in 
 this way be effected, and this too without in the least encroaching 
 upon the privacy of home life. If human beings were less selfish 
 and self-willed, more benevolent and ingenuous, more fully per- 
 meated with a sense of human brotherhood, in short, were per- 
 fect, there would seem to be 'no good reason why people could not 
 live in communities, — thus diminishing the expense and labor of 
 separate families, giving more leisure to all, enhancing the means 
 of mental and artistic culture, and giving opportunity for moral 
 improvement and increased social enjoyment. It is hoped that 
 humanity, in its progress, will some time arrive at a consummation 
 promising so many advantages. 
 
 The position of woman under the law which gives the income 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 123 
 
 of the family into the hands of the husband, and makes her de- 
 pendent upon him for every cent of money she has, is a fruitful 
 source of discontent and wrangling. It places woman in an in- 
 ferior and dependent position, which it is strange she has so long 
 submitted to, especially as a large share of the pecuniary gains of 
 the estate is often debtor to her labor and good management, and, 
 morally, could be claimed as her own, to be used and disposed of 
 as she should see fit. Many a wrong and injustice does she suffer 
 which wears upon her finer sensibilities by the legal position of her 
 husband as lord and master. These and other considerations 
 seem to justify woman in claiming a right to share with man in 
 the making of laws by which they both shall be governed. And 
 it is believed that when this old relic of barbarism, which had its 
 origin purely in superior physical force, is done away with, and 
 woman is allowed to stand, in comparison with man, upon the 
 merits of her own intellect and her own capacity of action, that 
 man will come to estimate himself more justly, and to stand higher 
 in the scale of being, as well as woman. 
 
 We talk a great deal of our free country and our free institutions. 
 The blood of thousands has been shed to secure what we call 
 personal freedom. Yet how far we still are from peaceably honor- 
 ing and enjoying true personal freedom in its full extent ! We are 
 reminded of this in social intercourse. We experience it in the 
 family. We have not yet attained to the crowning excellence of 
 freedom, — that of free thought and free speech. We are limited 
 in thought by public sentiment, by authority, by prejudice, and by 
 our own preconceived opinions. We are limited in speech by the 
 tenacity of opinion of those with whom we converse or to whom 
 we speak, joined to an excitability of temper which will not bear 
 opposition. Even among those most closely related to us, around 
 our own hearths and at our own tables, we cannot express our 
 thoughts freely, but at the risk of incurring excited retorts and 
 
124 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 awakening contention. So that, on politics, on religion, and on 
 many another subject of deepest interest to the human soul, we 
 must either be silent or withhold our true views, or else suffer the 
 pain of jarring words and of embittered feeling. The discovery of 
 truth, wherever it may lie, and candor in listening to and weighing 
 the opinions of others, is not the ruling principle. There is great 
 lack of ingenuousness, of a noble generosity in this respect. And 
 nowhere more than in our homes, in daily intercourse with the 
 members of our own family, is reform in this particular needed. 
 Nothing would tend more towards the progress and elevation of 
 individuals and of society than the prevalence of that state of mind 
 which would cordially recognize and respect the right of free 
 thought, and not only patiently, but cheerfully, acquiesce in the 
 free utterance of honest convictions. 
 
 In this connection, politeness may be named as a habit to be 
 studiously cultivated. This, in its highest sense, may be con- 
 sidered as the acme of all ethics, if not the crowning grace of all 
 religion. It embraces the fullest embodiment of the " Golden 
 Rule." It extends to the merest trifles. Indeed, its chief exercise 
 may be found to lie in trifles, — in the thousand minute particulars 
 as to words, manners, and actions, indefinable in themselves, but 
 which go so far in making up the sum of daily life. It consists in 
 that tender regard for the happiness of others which induces 
 scrupulous care in not wounding their feelings. It is a sense of 
 right carried into small things. It is delicate sensibility to the mani- 
 fold shades of things, attention to which contributes so much in 
 sweetening and embellishing life. It suggests mutual deference, 
 especially of the less to the more experienced. It recognizes and 
 honors diversities in age, gifts, acquirements, and positions. It 
 does not allow the exercise of jealousy, envy, prejudice, or selfish- 
 ness. It gracefully bows to the highest wisdom, in whomever 
 found. It is more resplendent when seen in the manners of the 
 
HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 125 
 
 prince towards the peasant than in the most profound reverences 
 before the monarch on his throne. 
 
 The following description of the home of Gerrit Smith presents 
 a beautiful picture of what the home should be : — 
 
 " One breathing the affluence of wealth without a touch of its insolence, 
 characterized by refinement and the highest culture, yet free from the 
 impertinence of display. Plainness of attire, simplicity of manner, 
 absolute sincerit}", and an all-pervading spirit of love, characterize the 
 family and give tone to the home, — a home free from press and huny 
 and confusion, where differences of opinion are expressed without 
 irritation, where the individual is respected, where the younger members 
 of the family are reverent and the older ones considerate, where all are 
 mindful of the interests of each, and each is thoughtful for all. A home 
 where, after almost fifty 3'ears of wedded life, husband and wife are still 
 lovers, still mindful of the graceful amenities, the loving observances, 
 that made beautiful the honeymoon." 
 
 In conclusion, and as a summary of all that tends " to lift our 
 homes off the plane of material provision and physical drudgery, 
 and infuse into them a stronger element of physical and moral 
 purpose," and that serves " to elevate society above its present 
 intellectual and moral barrenness, and make it fruitful in stimulus 
 to mental effort and to higher achievements in character and life," 
 we would emphatically pronounce the word, " Religion." This 
 covers the whole ground. No ramification of the domestic or 
 social structure escapes its limits. It requires men to " be perfect, 
 even as their Father which is in heaven is perfect." It therefore 
 becomes " the effort of man to perfect himself." It stretches out 
 to the Infinite in all directions ; demanding attention to the least, 
 no less than to the greatest concerns. It indeed estimates nothing 
 as small, nothing as insignificant. It honors every function of the 
 body, and demands that its wonderful mechanism shall be kept in 
 perfect order. The powers of mind are sacred in its light, and it 
 
126 HOME AND SOCIAL LIFE. 
 
 imposes the duty of their most faithful development and exercise. 
 It reveals itself in the book of Nature, and commands reverent 
 devotion to its teacliings. The moral and social affections are all 
 its own, and it requires their regulation in such manner as shall 
 secure the highest well-being and happiness of each and all. Its 
 mandate to all is, " Secure, with most scrupulous care, a sound 
 mind in a sound body, with a sound condition of the moral 
 feelings." It is universal in its essence. Its spirit is found in all 
 religions, and it brings into brotherhood all nations and races. In 
 the words of another, " It incukates unselfish zeal for the good of 
 others ; " " love of man for man's own sake." It regards " the 
 welfare of each individual soul as part and parcel of the universal 
 welfare of the race," and teaches that " the individual cannot 
 realize his own most private ideal unless he consecrates himself to 
 universal ends." 
 
 In home and social life, religion bears its most precious fruits. 
 And when its divine principles are fully realized and acted upon, 
 homes will become heavens, and social intercourse the communion 
 of saints. 
 
FOUNDATION OF 
 THE ARETHUSA HALL LECTURESHIP." 
 
 BY MISS REBECCA L. RICHMOND. 
 
 " The Warwick," Grand Eapids, Mich., 
 
 April 24, 1891. 
 
 My dear Miss Judd, — ... I have been reading of the numer- 
 ous and most promising educational movements going on all over 
 our country, and my thoughts have constantly reverted to the de- 
 voted and efficient labors of dear Miss Hall along those lines. ' I 
 know her heart has been gladdened in these later years to see how 
 the golden harvests are springing up. The workers are those of 
 the generation she helped to instruct, — strong, common-sense wo- 
 men, purse and hand and brain and heart working together for the 
 elevation of our nation ! In all the little classes of which I have 
 had charge through these years since she sent me out from the 
 Brooklyn Heights Seminary with my commission, her words, her 
 methods, her devotion have been my inspiration. Where I cannot 
 help personally, I send my dollars to encourage others. The 
 King's Daughters, the Kindergartners, the trained Nurses, the 
 Ministering Children, and other similar associations are busy in 
 our community, and we have a Young Ladies' Seminary recently 
 established at Grand Haven, thirty miles distant. There I hope 
 to endow a lectureship ere long, and should be glad of the permis- 
 
128 "THE ARETHUSA HALL LECTURESHP." 
 
 sion to give it the name of my most valued teacher, Arethusa Hall ; 
 the lectures to be delivered by women only, on subjects pertaining 
 to the development of the physical, moral, and domestic life of 
 woman. Perhaps this does not well express what Miss Hall would 
 like it to include, but I should like very much to have a suggestion 
 from her. With dearest love, and hoping to hear some brighter 
 news soon, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Eebecca L. Richmond. 
 
 " The Noeris," Grand Haven, Mich., 
 May 6, 189L 
 
 My dear Friends, Miss Hall and Miss Judd, — I am sitting 
 in the private office of this cosey little country hotel, Miss Hall's 
 pamphlet, " Home and Social Life," lying on the desk beside me: 
 This pamphlet and your letter, Miss Judd, arrived on Sunday last. 
 Miss Hall's message, and the printed words of her appeal to the 
 young women of our country, served as an impetus and an inspira- 
 tion, and I wrote at once to the principal of Akeley College that, 
 Providence permitting, I should visit the school on Tuesday and 
 give the girls the parlor-talk which had been solicited of me at in- 
 tervals during the year, but from which 1 had shrunk, as from 
 entering alone upon an untried path. The reading of Miss Hall's 
 address stirred within me so many delightful and grateful recollec- 
 tions of the old school-room at the Brooklyn Heights Seminary that 
 I really longed to see an assembly of boarding-school girls, and tell 
 them how much their present opportunities were capable of doing 
 for them, if they only put themselves fully and cheerfully en rap- 
 port with the spirit of the Institution. 
 
 So I came, all my fear and diffidence having vanished as a mist. 
 I met a corps of half-a-dozen young, enthusiastic, warm-hearted 
 
"THE ARETHUSA HALL LECTURESHIP." 129 
 
 teachers (none over thirty years of age), and an assembly of girls 
 from ten to eighteen years of age, thirty in number. The first 
 class, four in number, is to graduate this year. Well, I simply 
 enjoyed talking to them for half an hour, telling them first of my 
 own happy boarding-school experience, and mentioning Miss Hall 
 as a teacher whom all my later years have acknowledged as a true 
 artist in character-building, which is the great aim of what we call 
 education. I advised the girls to watch their teachers and not let 
 them slight their work of elimination and development : every 
 strong, symmetrical character among the women of this growing 
 generation was going to count for a great deal in the future weal 
 of our country, etc. 
 
 In the course of my talk it occurred to me that, in founding the 
 proposed lectureship, it might be well to make its theme " The 
 Home and Our Country." What do you think of that, Miss Hall ? 
 Would it not cover a broad field and open a great variety of fascin- 
 ating and useful subjects for clever women speakers ? Any sug- 
 gestions will be thankfully received, and the foundation will be 
 accomplished as soon as I can interview the Board of Trustees on 
 my return home. I am so glad I am able to accomplish this while 
 I have your advice and encouragement, Miss Hall ; and I trust you 
 may soon recover your average health and be able to enjoy reports 
 from the " Arethusa Hall Lectureship." I think my name will 
 have to be entered as the first on the list of speakers ! . , . With 
 ever so much love, 
 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 Rebecca L. Richmond. 
 17 
 
130 "THE ARETHUSA HALL LECTURESHIP." 
 
 " The Warwick," Grand Rapids, Mich., 
 June 8, 1891. 
 
 My DEAR Miss Judd, — The " Northampton Herald," containing 
 the mention of the passing on of oW dear old friend Miss Hall, 
 was duly received. 
 
 Of course the notice was not unexpected ; the pain of the part- 
 ing was really over four weeks before, when I learned of her en- 
 feebled condition, and the last tidings seemed rather those of a 
 joyful release from a bondage which must have been so prostrating 
 to her energetic, self-helpful nature. But her clear, philosophic 
 spirit doubtless rose superior to tlie temporary physical obstruc- 
 tions, and calmly anticipated the complete and eternal freedom 
 into which she was about to enter. Through her I gained my first 
 idea of the intimate relation, and close connection of the two 
 worlds, and of the probability of one uninterrupted existence. 
 Witliout ever having — to my remembrance — any distinctively 
 religious conversations, this idea was so interwoven with all her 
 instructions in the Brooklyn Heights Seminary that thoughtful 
 minds could not miss being influenced by it. 
 
 I am so thankful for that chance meeting with Mr. Jewett which 
 incited me to communicate to Miss Hall the project I had in hand ; 
 for, had I waited until its consummation, she would have gone 
 hence ere I had the satisfaction of letting her know the apprecia- 
 tion in which I still hold the faitlifulness with which she guided 
 my girlhood. Bishop Gillespie has accepted most gratefully the 
 endowment for the Arethusa Hall Lectureship, and, as soon as it is 
 put in proper shape officially by the School Board, I will communi- 
 cate with you. 
 
 I can imagine how very lonely for a time will be your pretty 
 little home without that intimate companionship, and please be 
 assured of my and my mother's heartfelt sympathy, 
 
 Affectionately, 
 • Rebecca L. Richmond. 
 
"THE ARETHUSA HALL LECTURESHIP." 131 
 
 " The WARWicii," Grand Rapids, Mich., 
 Jan. 19, 1892. 
 
 My dear Miss Judd, — . . •. The precious memento of our good 
 friend Miss Hall arrived the day following my sending the paper 
 to you. "Madame Swetchine's Biography " I shall prize as being 
 one of the books dear to Miss Hall, as being the story of a conse- 
 crated life, and as being so specially interesting at present in the 
 light of Russian prominence and Russian problems. How Miss 
 Hall loved to philosophize upon life and history ! I am so reminded 
 of her method of instruction in the " University Extension " course 
 of lectures in our city. She was a leader, and a quarter of a cen- 
 tury in the van. 
 
 Anything found in my letters which Mr. Abbot may please to 
 use, as voicing the appreciation of Miss Hall's value as a teacher 
 by her pupils, you are quite at liberty so to appropriate ; for I 
 know my words were only representative of a feeling co-extensive 
 with her graduating classes. Should any of her friends wish to 
 contribute to the memorial Lectureship at Akeley Institute, it 
 would be thankfully received. . . . 
 
 Most cordially your friend, 
 
 Rebecca L. Richmond. 
 
 " The Warwick," Grand Rapids, Mich., 
 April 21, 1892. 
 Mr. Francis E. Abbot : 
 
 My dear Sir,— Your note of reminder, expressing at the same 
 time such kindly consideration for my dear mother, was received 
 yesterday. . . . 
 
 One of Arethusa Hall's most earnest aims as an educator was to 
 prepare her pupils to be competent custodians of the home, and 
 
132 "THE ARETHUSA HALL LECTURESHIP." 
 
 worthy mothers of American citizens. Even in my school days I 
 appreciated her high standards, and felt grateful for her strong, 
 helpful methods. After the lapse of a quarter of a century I still 
 found that Miss Hall's characteristics as a teacher compared favor- 
 ably with the best modern examples. So when, in April, 1891, 
 the desire and the ability came to me to erect to my old teacher 
 (then living) a lasting tribute of admiration, gratitude, and affec- 
 tion, I felt it could not be better done than in the endowment of a 
 lectureship, in a young ladies' seminary, which should embody and 
 disseminate some of the leading principles which inspired her 
 life-work. 
 
 The opportunity lay at my own door in connection with the 
 Akeley Institute of Grand Haven, Mich,, a school only three 
 years incorporated, but full of promise. My offer was thankfully 
 accepted by the trustees of the institution ; and before Miss Hall's 
 death I had the pleasure of announcing to her the establishment of 
 a lectureship named for her and entitled, " The Home and Our 
 Country," — its object the promotion of education along such lines 
 as shall tend to develop the highest type of domesticity and pa- 
 triotism. The endowment began with the small sum of five hun- 
 dred dollars, which this year I have been able to increase to fifteen 
 hundred, invested in ten per cent funds. I shall add to it as I am 
 able, and it is open, of course, to contributions from others of 
 Miss Hall's friends. . . . 
 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 Rebecca L. Richmond. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 FROM JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 
 
 Newburtpokt, 2 Mo. 17, 1892. 
 Rev. Francis E. Abbot : 
 
 Dear Friend, — John G. Whittier, who is very slowly recover- 
 ing from a severe attack of illness, desires me to thank thee for 
 thy kind letter of 15th instant, and to say that he recently received 
 a similar request from Margaret Woods Lawrence, of Baltimore, 
 relating to a Memorial of the late Arethusa Hall, and dictated a 
 reply, giving in brief his recollections of his old teacher, which he 
 supposed would be forwarded to thee, and is unable to account for 
 the delay. 
 
 With kindest regards of J. G. W., 
 
 Thine very truly, 
 
 Gertrude W. Cartland. 
 
 [Almost simultaneously with the above, Mrs. Lawrence sent the following 
 tribute from the aged poet, enclosed in a letter : — ] 
 
 It was while Miss Hall was teaching in the academy in Haver- 
 hill that John G. Whittier was one of her pupils. In reply to 
 recent inquiries, he writes : " I have most pleasant recollections of 
 my old teacher, Arethusa Hall. She was one who, in an eminent 
 degree, won the respect and affection of her pupils, and was thus 
 
134 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 enabled to exert a most salutary injQuence over them. Always 
 earnest and faithful in the work she loved, she could but inspire 
 others with a similar earnestness, and the school owed much of its 
 success and usefulness to her labors." 
 
 FROM THEODORE D. WELD. 
 
 [Mrs. Lawrence sent also this tribute, as eloquent as it is brief, from the 
 aged philanthropist and reformer : — ] 
 
 I CANNOT begin to express the power of the impressions made 
 upon me by my interviews with Arethusa Hall several years ago. 
 They were just such interviews as best served to reveal herself, — 
 her utterly unselfish nature, impelling her to be, do, dare, bear, 
 and forbear for others, — to be eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, 
 and a tongue to the dumb, — that made her whole life one of 
 sympathy with all suffering. 
 
 FROM MR8. MARGARET WOODS LAWRENCE. 
 
 Baltimore, Jan. 18, 1892. 
 
 Dear Mr. Abbot, — You ask me to give you my recollections of 
 our friend Arethusa Hall. These recollections, running back more 
 than fifty years, so throng upon me that I scarcely know how to 
 begin. 
 
 My first glimpse of " Thusa" was in 1837, through a parsonage 
 window. While connected with Gorham Seminary, I received a 
 letter from my dear friends, Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Chapin, telling me 
 that they were to leave Westhampton, which had been their home 
 for many years, and to enter upon missionary work in Canada. I 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 135 
 
 could not let them go without seeing them once more, so I found 
 my way to Boston, where I took the slow, plodding stage-coach to 
 Northampton, and, reaching there after dusk, hired a man to drive 
 me out to Westhampton. We inquired the way to the parsonage, 
 and then, letting him into my secret of wishing to surprise my 
 friends, I asked him to drive slowly, and to help me alight in the 
 middle of the road. I softly walked to a window whose blinds were 
 open, and by the mingled fire and lamp-light I took out my purse, 
 and managing to make the change, carried it to the man, charging 
 him to drive away as carefully as he had come. Then I went back 
 and took the liberty to stand there and gaze through the window. 
 I think Mr. Chapin was seated, wliile Mrs. Chapin flitted to and fro. 
 By the fireside sat a tall, dignified young woman in mourning 
 attire. I had heard so much of " Thusa " that I instantly divined 
 it must be she, and lingered a little longer to study her. Then, 
 without ring or rap, I softly opened the obstructing doors and 
 glided in. Instantly followed the exclamations, " Why, Mar- 
 garet ! " " Why, little Woods ! " with loving embraces and all the 
 excitement of a warm welcome that I could have desired. 
 
 The bands of friendship between the two strangers, who Mrs. 
 Chapin used to affirm were "as unlike as a fish and a bird," — 
 though which was which she never said, — these bands were 
 instantly knit, and from that moment, to Arethusa's last day on 
 earth, were never loosened. 
 
 All through that first long night we slept, or rather ivahed, 
 together and talked as girls will do. She told me of her early 
 life and of her friend Catherine, for whom lier love was a veri- 
 table passion. This friend's recent death had taken deep hold of 
 her, and she was arrayed in black as a symbol of her grief. In 
 her later life, however, she discarded all such symbols. 
 
 In those few days that we passed under the same roof, we came 
 to know each other as intimately as if our acquaintance had been 
 
136 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 that of years instead of hours. When we separated, it was as old 
 friends, and long letters were frequently exchanged between us. 
 On the occasion of my marriage, she passed some weeks with me, 
 becoming acquainted with my bridesmaid, Louisa Payson, and our 
 best man, Rev. Alonzo Gray. This acquaintance led, some years 
 later, to her being associated with Mr. Gray in the establishment 
 of Brooklyn Heights Seminary, where she remained some years as 
 lady principal. 
 
 When I first knew Miss Hall, she was a member of the Edwards 
 Church, Northampton, and it was a great sorrow to her when her 
 beloved kinsman, Sylvester Judd, went into the Unitarian Church. 
 It was not very long, however, before she followed him there ; and 
 as the years went on, the difference in our religious views widened. 
 Never, however, for a single moment did this lead to any jar in 
 our friendship. All along through the years, to the close of her 
 life, I found her an earnest, single-hearted seeker after truth, a 
 conscientious, noble, unselfish woman, with high ideals and lofty 
 aims. However she might philosophize, few lives were richer in 
 Christian fruit. " A juster, more upright person I never knew," 
 writes one of her long-time friends. 
 
 At first our correspondence was frequent, but, as the cares of life 
 encroached on us both, it grew less so. Yet, however brief, her 
 letters always had the old, true ring. In trial and in affliction, 
 I never failed to receive from her sympathy, consolation, and 
 strength. 
 
 It was early in the thirties that Miss Hall was a teacher in 
 Portsmouth, N. H., and boarded for several months in the same 
 family with Rev. Dr. A. P. Peabody, then pastor of the Unitarian 
 Church in that place. Dr. Peabod}' writes : — 
 
 " I remember Miss Hall as distinctly as if I had seen her yester- 
 day. She had every token of superior culture, conversed on the 
 literary subjects then before the minds of educated people with 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 137 
 
 more tlian intelligence, — with keen discernment, and with the 
 warmest interest, — and was a great favorite with the circle with 
 wliich I was specially intimate. Her religious convictions were 
 strong and pronounced. We boarded in a family of superior 
 intelligence and standing, belonging to the Episcopal Church, and 
 there was a great deal of friendly discussion among us as to our 
 respective theological positions. Miss Hall was thoroughly versed 
 in the polemics of her denomination and time, and held her own 
 in all our passages of arms. But my cherished remembrance of 
 her is of her sincere and constant friendship, her uniform kindness, 
 and the happiness that came to me from my constant association 
 with her for months." 
 
 Miss Hall was one in whom all who knew her placed the most 
 implicit confidence ; she never disappointed them. In 1842, Mr. 
 William Caldwell, of Newburyport, going to Andover for study, 
 and (to use his own words), " as a mere boy and homesick among 
 strangers," boarded for many weeks in the same family with our 
 friend. He writes of her in the warmest terms, " of her great 
 kindness, of our long friendship, how like an Egeria she was to me 
 in those early days, how sweet an influence she has had on my 
 whole life, leading me by her sympathy and unerring taste into 
 high and beautiful paths! What a rare nature she had, — faith- 
 ful, loving, youthful to the very last ! " 
 
 The change that was going on in Miss Hall's religious views is 
 indicated in the following extracts from a letter she wrote me in 
 1853 : " I trust your mind is sufficiently expanded to take the 
 philosophy of religion, or speculative theology, for one thing, and the 
 simple religion of the heart for quite another, and not be much 
 troubled if your philosophy and that of others does not agree, if so 
 be the simple principles of duty to God, and the practice of Christ's 
 precepts, are found in common. Believe me, when we wake up in 
 the spirit world, we shall not be all Orthodox, or all Umtarian,ov all 
 
 18 
 
138 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 anything else of sect^ but shall all unite on tlie simple basis of love, 
 which is the law and the prophets. I don't believe much of any- 
 thing but to love God with all the heart, and our neighbor as 
 ourselves." 
 
 During Miss Hall's connection with Brooklyn Heights Seminary, 
 she attended the Unitarian church over which Rev. Samuel Long- 
 fellow was pastor, the church being dedicated in 1858. Mr. Long- 
 fellow, in response to my inquiry, writes : " My acquaintance with 
 Miss Hall gave me much pleasure and interest. I saw her often 
 during my residence in Brooklyn, and held her in high esteem for 
 her intelligence, her cultivated literary tastes, her well-balanced 
 mind, her deep interest in thoughtful matters, her strong sympathy 
 in the broad and advanced ideas of the time. With a simple creed, 
 open ever to new light, she had a genuinely religious nature. 
 After leaving Brooklyn in 1860, I met her very seldom, but found 
 her ever the same." 
 
 There was an unusual symmetry and rounded-out-ness in Thusa's 
 character. Extremely practical, yet full of sentiment, keenly 
 sensitive, yet thoroughly self-controlled, she could with ease cut 
 and fit a dress, discuss abstruse metapljysics, make bread and 
 cake, conduct a seminary, or write an article or a book. Of the 
 latter, her " Manual of Morals," her translation of Pascal's 
 " Thoughts," the "Life of Sylvester Judd," and, as late as 1883, her 
 translation from the " Revue des Deux Mondes " of " Rationalism 
 in the United States," speak for themselves. She was remarkably 
 orderly and systematic. If in her younger days there seemed a 
 suggestion of primness, this all passed away as she grew older. 
 Indeed, increasing years gave increasing mellowness to her manner 
 as well as her character. 
 
 Miss Hall had an instinctive sense as to the fitness of things, so 
 that her friends relied much on her judgment, looking to her for 
 counsel on all sorts of matters. As one of them remarked, " she 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 139 
 
 was the guiding star of the family." Youthful in her feelings and 
 full of physical and mental vigor, she had a peculiarly keen enjoy- 
 ment of life, observing at one time that she should like to live five 
 hundred years. 
 
 About five or six years ago she made her last visit at Linden 
 Home. Of this visit my daughter writes : " The picture of Miss 
 Hall is very distinct, with her grand head, her noble bearing, and 
 a gracious dignity that a queen might enyj. In my intercourse 
 with her I was charmed and fascinated. She drew me out, lead- 
 ing me to speak of all that interested me, and entering into every- 
 thing with the sympathy of a young girl. I came to love her 
 dearly. After this she wrote me occasionally, her last communi- 
 cation being a characteristic note, written in her sickness, in reply 
 to a letter of mine." 
 
 It was in the latter part of May, scarcely two years before she 
 passed from earth, that she wrote me of her lameness, which the 
 doctors called rheumatism, but urged my visiting her in her North- 
 ampton home on my way East. It was an invitation with which I 
 was only too happy to comply. 
 
 At the appointed time I found myself on the street-cars on the 
 way to her house. As Thusa stood at the door waiting for her 
 friend, she saw us going past, and, signalling to the driver to stop, 
 she came out to meet me. That week's visit was an ideal one, — 
 a veritable idyl, never to be forgotten. In her cosey little parlor 
 we sat and communed together of things past, things present, and 
 things to come, giving little heed to the clouds gathering in her 
 horizon. She told me the story of her acquaintance with Mr. 
 Abbot, and read me a number of his letters. The picture of her 
 as slie was at this time is very vivid in my memory. 
 
 Miss Hall's care for my comfort touched me greatly. Knowing 
 my dread of travelling alone, she insisted on going to the station 
 with me, and, taking my travelling-bag in her hands, she went her- 
 
140 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 self to the baggage-master and persuaded him to check it. How 
 little did I realize as I waved my hand to her from the cars that 
 it was my last sight of her on earth ! 
 
 I never knew anything more pathetic than were her closing 
 days, — the slow, steady failure of her physical powers, while she 
 retained all her mental vigor. As Miss Nina, who watched so 
 lovingly and faithfully beside her, wrote me : " Her mind is clear, 
 and her perceptions are as keen as ever ; only it is as if she were 
 hopelessly immured in a prison, with the walls closing gradu- 
 ally around her." 
 
 And she saw these walls closing ; she felt the invisible hand 
 creeping slowly over her, and knew that it was ruthlessly shutting 
 her out from all communication with her friends ; not the slightest 
 stroke, not the most stealthy advance, was lost to her by mental 
 torpor, by a dulling of her quick perceptions, which under the cir- 
 cumstances would have seemed a blessing. No wonder she wrote 
 to a friend, " I sit and think and think things unutterable." 
 
 At first with much difficulty she made out to write several let- 
 ters ; but the power to use her hands steadily diminished. On 
 February 18 she writes me : " Even my right hand has forgot its 
 cunning, and I can hardly pencil a word. Not only does the spine 
 failure make me helpless, but the effect of last winter's Grippe on 
 my chest is killing me. ... It must be so. The end must come, 
 must come to all, — to you as well, in time. Let us not quarrel 
 with the divine laws of the Universe^ in whose grand scheme we 
 are involved." 
 
 Though writing, thus painfully, with her wonted consideration 
 Thusa added kind words in regard to a clipping that had been en- 
 closed for her perusal. 
 
 But even this limited consolation could not last. Slowly the 
 unseen hand withdrew the pencil, and then, touching her lips, her 
 speech became inarticulate. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 141 
 
 And thus the days dragged on. Only the dear Father who per- 
 mitted such suffering comprehended its depths, and knew why it 
 was best for her. 
 
 It is a comfort to know that our friend's feelings are expressed 
 in the enclosed beautiful poem, " Some Time," — a poem which 
 she warmly appreciated : — 
 
 SOME TIME. 
 
 Some time, when all life's lessons have been learned. 
 
 And sun and stars forevermore have set. 
 The things which our weak judgments here have spurned. 
 
 The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet, 
 Will flash before us out of Hfe's dark night, 
 
 As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue, 
 And we shall see how all God's plans were right, 
 
 And how what seemed reproof was love most true. 
 
 And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh, 
 
 God's plans go on as best for yon and me, 
 How, when we called, He heeded not our cry, 
 
 Because His wisdom to the end could see ; 
 And even as wise parents disallow 
 
 Too much of sweet to craving babyhood. 
 So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now 
 
 Life's sweetest things because it seemeth good. 
 
 And if, sometimes, commingled with life's wine, 
 
 We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink, 
 Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine 
 
 Pours out this portion for our lips to drink. 
 And if some friend we love is lying low, 
 
 Where human kisses cannot reach his face, 
 Oh, do not blame the loving Father so, 
 
 But wear your sorrow with obedient grace. 
 
142 TRIBUTES FROM FRIEN^DS. 
 
 And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath 
 
 Is not the sweetest gift God sends His friend, 
 And that, sometimes, the sable hall of Death 
 
 Conceals the fairest boon His love can send. 
 If we could push afar the gates of life, 
 
 And stand within, and all God's workings see, 
 We could interpret all this joy and strife, 
 
 And for each mj'stery could find a key. 
 
 But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart ! 
 
 God's plans, like lilies, pure and white, unfold. 
 We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart. 
 
 Time will reveal the cal3^xes of gold. 
 And if, through patient toil, we reach the land 
 
 Where tired feet, with sandals loose, may rest, 
 When we shall clearly know and understand, 
 
 I think that we shall say, " God knew the best." 
 
 Mat Rilet Smith. 
 
 FROM MRS. FRANCES HALL BEACH. 
 
 Very vivid is the recollection of my last visit in Cambridge, in 
 the winter of 1889-1890, to the dear aunt who has passed from 
 us. It had been my habit to pass a day with her every winter, 
 and it was a great pleasure to sit and chat with her in the sunny 
 room set apart for her use by the kind friends who made her 
 winter home so pleasant. Flowers always stood upon the table, 
 brought by loving hands ; vines encircled the room ; pressed 
 leaves and ferns, pictures, little touches here and there, lent to 
 the room the tasteful and attractive air that every room always 
 took on when occupied by her. But at this visit I noticed with 
 pain the first signs of disease and age that I had ever seen in her. 
 The fresh and almost infantine complexion had become dark and 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 143 
 
 sallow ; the form, heretofore erect and dignified, was bent over the 
 cane, without which she could not move ; the lips, from which the 
 sweetness had always come cleai'-cut and crisp, were drawn and 
 unmanageable : but the eyes were unnaturally bright, and the 
 spirit that looked from them as alert and indomitable as ever. 
 Although unable to go downstairs, her time was fully occupied with 
 reading, writing, knitting, and sewing. An almost feverish energy 
 possessed her. " I must be doing something," she said, plain- 
 tively ; and, as she liad just finished some stockings for my boys, 
 she asked me if I had any more work for her. Dear hands, how 
 much they had worked for me and mine ! 
 
 As I left her, with sad forebodings, and took the long car-ride 
 to town, I bethought me of some work that perhaps she could do. 
 Some French books had been lent me for translation, but time 
 had failed me, and for months they had lain upon my table. 
 Remembering how many French books my aunt had translated, 
 and how familiar she was with the language, I said to myself, 
 " Perhaps she will enjoy undertaking this work ; " and I wrote to 
 her about it, telling her that she could take her own time for it, 
 that the translation would not be needed for some months, perhaps. 
 She replied at once, saying that she should be glad to do it for me 
 for love of the work. I sent her two books. In three weeks she 
 returned them with the translation complete, condensed, and ready 
 for use, and, as the gentleman who was to use it said, in admirable 
 style. (What did she ever write that was not in admirable 
 style?) This for a woman past eighty, crippled with disease 
 and almost helpless, seemed to me little short of a miracle. 
 
 I saw my aunt but once after this, — in the " Old Home " at 
 Northampton. Disease had told upon her, and it was hard to look 
 into the appealing eyes and maintain self-control. My husband 
 and children were with me, and we made her a brief and cheerful 
 visit. I was determined that nothing should disturb the serenity 
 
144 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 of what I knew would be our last hours with her. We talked of 
 the future, of our plans, and in everything that concerned us she 
 took the keenest and most intelligent interest. 
 
 We finally bade her a bright good-by and were gone, when my 
 little Reuel (five years old), feeling the meaning of those eyes that 
 followed him, flew back, threw his arms about her neck, and gave 
 her another kiss. It was the last that he would ever give or she 
 receive. Soon after this she wrote significantly : " Tell Curtis I 
 have solved the problem he labored at, 'Is life worth living?' 
 Surely not, with no backbone, and no power of speech, and a hand 
 threatening every day to refuse to hold a pen. ... I scarcely 
 know myself, — so different from the person of my name I used to 
 know ! How. long do you suppose it will last ? " 
 
 ¥/hat my aunt has been to me from earliest childhood it would 
 not be easy for me to express. "Aunty Mamma" we called her, 
 and slie seemed to combine in herself all relationships. In her 
 long life slie had taken care of the children of three generations, — 
 my father, myself, and my own child. Into my life she came when 
 I was very young, and no one among my friends has left an im- 
 pression so strong. Every summer she came from her city school 
 to my country home to spend her vacation. Her coming was 
 looked forward to witli delight. Everything about her was beauti- 
 ful and interesting to me, — her clothes, her jewelry (the gifts of 
 loving pupils), lier dainty toilet articles, her work-bag made of 
 many-colored ribbons, and bric-a-brac for which she had a fancy 
 many years before it became the fashionable fad. In dress she 
 liked the colors that are in vogue at tlie present day. Although 
 womeu of her age and generation wore garments of sombre hue 
 and plain style, she loved and indulged in bright colors and youth- 
 ful modes. Sometimes, to the horror of her sedate friends, a bit 
 of corn-color (of which she was specially fond) would appear in 
 some article of her attire. She took an interest in my wardrobe, 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 145 
 
 and often made from her own old gowns new ones for my sister or 
 me. There was nothing that she could not make with her needle. 
 
 To fit herself for a successful teacher of Belles Lettres in a 
 fashionable city school, and by her own unaided brains to acquire 
 a competence, would have been enough for most women. But these 
 were only a part of her achievements. There was nothing in the 
 whole catalogue of woman's work that she could not do, and in the 
 best possible way, from making a gown or a loaf of sponge-cake to 
 writing a book. 
 
 And there were many things that usually fall to men that she 
 could do better than most men, and she made derision of the 
 feeble attempts of my father or my uncle at landscape gardening, 
 wherein she excelled. 
 
 At the present day, nursing is a fine art that many women 
 study ; but she had mastered it by intuition, and was ready, with 
 soft, strong fingers, to apply massage, or to treat almost any 
 ailment. 
 
 French was like her mother-tongue to her, and almost all 
 that I know of tlie language I learned at her knee during the sum- 
 mer vacations. The care and labor and thought that she bestowed 
 upon lier nieces during those vacations would have seemed like 
 hard work to any one else, but she made rest and recreation of it. 
 
 Her interest in her friends (and they were legion), the way in 
 which she entered into all their concerns and made them her own, 
 was something marvellous. 
 
 To lift up and inspire, to lead up into the higher life, was her 
 continual effort. The motto of Hyperion was hers : " Look not 
 mournfully into the Past : it comes not back again. Wisely im- 
 prove the Present : it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy 
 Future without fear, and with a manly heart." 
 
 She has gone, — and there are none like her to come after her. 
 The hills of Norwich will bring forth no more stalwart daughters 
 
 19 
 
146 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 like unto her. But in the hearts of many kinsfolk and friends to 
 whom she has been a help, an example, and an inspiration, she 
 remains a cherished and blessed memory. 
 
 FROM MRS. SARAH WALTER HALLOCK. 
 
 MiLTON-ON-HuDSON, April 21, 1892. 
 Dear Miss Judd, — Your note came to me this morning, and has 
 touched me more deeply than I can express. I did not know of 
 Miss Hall's death, but I have often thought of late that she might 
 be no longer here, so many of her generation have left us in the 
 past year. Miss Hall has been one of the influences of my whole 
 life. I recall her face and voice and manner as if I had seen her 
 yesterday. It is years since we met last, but the world seems 
 sadder and more empty now that she has left it. No words of 
 mine can do her sufficient honor, but I shall be glad to have them 
 bear whatever testimony they may carry ; you are welcome to use 
 the letters. That Miss Hall should care to keep them is a great 
 happiness to me. When you have done with them, I should like to 
 have them, to put with a letter of hers in reply to one of them. 
 My daughter may value them some day. I know of two of Miss 
 Hall's pupils who kept their old enthusiasm for her, — Mrs. Anna 
 Olcott Commelin, of Brooklyn, and ray sister, Mrs. E. W. Cogge- 
 shall, of New York. Miss Hall visited them both after-I had left 
 my old home. 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 Sarah Walter Hallock. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 147 
 
 MiLTON-ON-HuDSON, Aug. 11, 1886. 
 
 Dear Miss Hall, — Seeing your name in to-day's paper in con- 
 nection with the Haverhill Reunion has brought upon me such a 
 flood of memories, such a rush of old affections, as proves " it is 
 not love that dies ; " and out of the fulness of the heart my pen 
 speaks to you. 
 
 Do you remember me, dear Miss Hall? lam — or was — the 
 girl you knew as Sarah Walter, at the Brooklyn Heights Seminary, 
 and the affection you drew from her then abides still. Little words 
 of admonition and encouragement, just reproof, the high ideal and 
 faithful teaching in all ways, — the grateful remembrance of these 
 has gone with me through my life, rather a checkered one in some 
 ways, but blessed always with truth, tenderness, and fidelity. My 
 home is on the Hudson River, and I have my little round of house- 
 hold cares and occupations ; but my lot has been happily cast in a 
 family of readers, and the interests which books and papers bring 
 into a quiet country life. Then I have my children, only two in 
 number, and born after I had been married several years. They 
 are, of course, a great delight to us, and an impetus as well. For 
 their sake I have gone back to my old school books, especially 
 Chambers's " Encyclopaedia " and my " Literary Reader," and find 
 in them a keen pleasure for myself, mingled with a great regret 
 for the unappreciated golden opportunities of my youth. 
 
 Pardon me, dear Miss Hall, if I am intruding upon you ; but I 
 find the spell which in the old days made me talk myself out to 
 you is active still. I wish I could see you and hear the sound of 
 your voice, although both are so vivid in my mind that the impulse 
 to write to you was irresistible. 
 
 Ever most sincerely yours, 
 
 Sarah Walter Hallock. 
 
148 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 Milton-on-Hddson, Dec. 8, 
 
 My dear Miss Hall, — Your letter gave me so much pleasure 
 — I was so grateful to you for answering me at all, and so doubly- 
 pleased and grateful that you should remember me so kindly and 
 speak to me with your pen just as you used to — that it might seem 
 unaccountable that so long a time has passed in silence since your 
 letter came. To say that I have thought of you again and again, 
 and yet again, goes without saying. As I told you, you are one of 
 the influences of my life ; part of t/ou has gone with me all along 
 my pathway, and indirectly will go on with my children. I some- 
 times wonder if in this way we may have part of our immortality, 
 I think a little of the school-girl awe remains, too, and I have hesi- 
 tated to intrude too much or claim a share of the time which is of 
 value to so many. Still, I could not let the year go by without a 
 word with you, — that is my heart's impulse, you will understand. 
 
 I have been reading your letter again, and find it is dated on the 
 16th of September. That little letter I have put away among a 
 few others in a private drawer of my desk, thinking that in days to 
 come ray children may find them and glean from them a knowledge 
 of their mother's earlier days which could come in no other way. 
 How much I should like to see you ! And to have you talk to me, 
 Miss Hall! 
 
 I am a busy woman, and my life, with all its peace and under- 
 lying happiness, is full of care. . . . The subjects of which you 
 speak as being of such vast interest open so broad and inspiring a 
 field for thought that one cannot but long to enter it, and find the 
 rest which grows out of its magnitude. Two people, my father 
 and yourself, more than any others I have known, have given me, 
 not so much by words as by personal influence, an idea of what it 
 might be to rise above the unimportant wori-ies into this higher 
 intellectual and spiritual life. 
 
 My sister Annie and myself often speak of you when we meet, 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. ^49 
 
 and she, too, holds you always in her best memories. She is a 
 much-absorbed wife and mother, but she keeps her generous nature 
 as of yore. Do you remember Therese Tileston, of our class? 
 She and 1 have kept up an unchangeable friendship, and often 
 go into the old days of the Brooklyn Heights Seminary. 
 
 Forgive my many words and the childish mood which has dic- 
 tated them ; only remember I shall always be 
 
 Lovingly and gratefully yours, 
 
 Sarah Walter Hallock. 
 
 FEOM MRS. ANNA OLCOTT COMMELIN. 
 
 On the first day of the opening of the Brooklyn Heights Semi- 
 nary, of which Professor Alonzo Gray was Principal, I was entered 
 as a pupil in one of its lower grades, and I well remember my 
 childish impressions of the teacher, Miss Arethusa Hall, who pre- 
 sided over its highest department. In the large room, which was 
 also used as chapel, memory brings back her august appearance, 
 and I recall to-day the feeling of awe which her dignity of carriage 
 and deportment aroused in my youthful mind. I recollect, also, as 
 time went on, my dread lest, in passing through this presence- 
 chamber, the creaking of my new boots might disturb its solemn 
 stillness, and invade an atmosphere of isolation and absorption in 
 study which seemed to surround each pupil, the result of a dis- 
 cipline which had for its aim the most perfect self-control and the 
 absolute surrender of each individual mind to appointed intellectual 
 labor. Time passed on, however, and I became a member of the 
 senior department in a junior grade, when to my former feelings 
 of awe and respect were added new sensations of wonder and de- 
 light as I sat at my desk, my own task neglected, and listened, 
 
150 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 spell-bound, to the recitations of the older girls, in the class of En- 
 glish Literature, which Miss Hall made delightful by her own rare 
 appreciation of all that was noblest in English prose and poetry, 
 and a magnetic power she possessed of interesting her pupils in a 
 remarkable degree. When, at length, as a member of the senior 
 class, — a class which Miss Hall made the object of her especial care 
 and attention, — I became a participant in its labors and pleasures, 
 my respect for her admirable qualities as teacher and disciplinarian 
 deepened into warm regard and affection for her as a woman, — 
 a woman whose standards were lofty, intellectually and morally, 
 whose aims were unworldly, and whose ideals of womanhood were 
 inspiring. Her strong personal interest was felt by her pupils, — 
 an interest which continued unabated throughout her entire life, — 
 and made her association with them of greater value than that of 
 an instructor only. In my own case, the attachment Ijegun in 
 school-days was but the commencement of a long friendship, which 
 grew and strengthened as the years went on. Miss Hall was the 
 first to give me encouragement in writing, which has since been a 
 source of interest and solace. Her criticism was as truthful and 
 friendly as her praise was sincere and genuine. In a correspond- 
 ence with her, which began many years ago, and was prolonged 
 until a short time previous to her death, when she was able, 
 physically,. to write only a few lines, — I enjoyed an intercourse 
 which I prized highly, and which was always helpful and inspiring 
 to me, as she kept up with the most advanced thought of the time 
 and with the best books. Each letter was welcomed, not only for 
 bringing me word of her own well-being, but also for an intel- 
 lectual quickening, which I always received with it. Miss Hall's 
 mind retained its vigor and fine powers, the last written lines from 
 her pen showing no diminution of mental force or feebleness of 
 age. A letter, written in 1888, lies before me now, and is remark- 
 able not only for literary merit, but also for its penmanship, its 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 151 
 
 i 
 
 nicety, daintiness, and broad margins, which made all her letters 
 attractive, and gave to them an appearance of elegance and leisure. 
 
 Who can estimate the value and far-reaching influence of such a 
 life ? Year by year, class after class of young v^^omen from Brook- 
 lyn, New York, and many other places came under her especial 
 care, and she gave them the best fruits of her ripe experience. 
 They were " the girls " to her, and so continued to be in her inter- 
 est for and in them, long after they had gone out into the world, 
 and were many of them wives and mothers of families. Indeed, 
 as long as siie lived, she would speak of them, with a smile, in this 
 way, and use the same term familiarly in her letters. Miss Hall 
 possessed an unusual memory. It was necessary only to name a 
 pupil to her, in remembrance or by message, long after she had left 
 her care, to see her aroused attention, and the solicitude she would 
 show regarding her. This feeling was also strong in her pupils for 
 her, when the course of time and other cares might have lessened 
 it. It was my good fortune to have some of my schoolmates as 
 friends all my life, and to meet many more pleasantly in various 
 ways, and it was a common bond of sympathy and an interest whicli 
 never failed, when any one of us had received tidings from our 
 former teacher. Among the tributes of regard and affection for 
 her, from those who were her scholars, which I have seen in rela- 
 tion to this memorial, are these lines : " Miss Hall led her pupils 
 into the field of literature like a general, encouraging, commanding, 
 inspiring them, making them feel that retreat was dishonorable, 
 failure impossible. It will take a graphic pen to sketch her 
 remarkable and useful life." 
 
 Miss Hall had an intellect broad, clear, and vigorous, and fear- 
 less in its search for truth. She was absolutely sincere in her 
 speech. She grappled with the problems which confront us all, and 
 found no help in creeds or dogmas, but gained faith and light as 
 she advanced in years. In one of her latest letters occurs this 
 
152 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 paragraph, in reference to the future life : " Le Conte's ' Evolu- 
 tion in Relation to Religious Thought' I think a very helpful book 
 for the present day. There is, at the Centre of Nature, basis for 
 hope and trust far more sure than any Scriptures of the ages past 
 can give. There I rest my faith, and it is sufficient." 
 
 The literary work done by Miss Hall was of fine quality, and Mr. 
 Abbot will be, of all her friends, the one best fitted to do it justice. 
 
 As civilization progresses, more and more highly the sacredness 
 and responsibility of the teacher's calling is estimated, so potent is 
 its influence on the young at the most impressible period. Not 
 long ago, in this city, a jewelled testimony from the women of 
 Brooklyn was given to an honored teacher who had filled the same 
 place, in Professor West's Seminary, which Miss Hall had occupied 
 in the institution previously established by Professor Gray, — a 
 tribute well won to a woman whose tragic death brought sorrow to 
 a large circle of friends and acquaintances. Miss Hall's later and 
 closing years were passed away from the scene of her former labors ; 
 but, if all the women who express grateful appreciation of her 
 fidelity as an instructor, affection for her, and esteem for lier char- 
 acter, had attempted to do her honor, as royal testimony as was 
 ever given to any teacher by her pupils would have been hers. Yet 
 to me it is not unmeet that one whose life was less in material 
 things than any woman whom I have ever known, should have, in 
 the loyal and grateful remembrance of so many of her own sex, a 
 spiritual tribute which is in keeping with her highest thought. 
 
 My own personal sense of bereavement is very great, in tlie loss 
 of my beloved teacher and friend. But for her, who ascended ever 
 nobler heights in her progress here, it is well. She has escaped 
 the infirmities of age, and is now enjoying the fulfilment of the 
 desire she expressed to me, in the "glory of going on." 
 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 153 
 
 FROM MISS ALICE BUTLER GARY. 
 
 Gary Farm, Lexington, Mass., 
 Sept. 7, 1892. 
 Mr. F. E. Abbot: 
 
 Dear Sir, — Mrs. Commeliii has written me that you are pre- 
 paring a Memorial of Miss Hall, and would like some tributes of 
 appreciation and love from her old pupils. I am only too glad to 
 send you my expression of reverent affection, and wish it could be 
 the result of the companionship of my mature years as well as the 
 memory of the happy school days now so far away in the past. I 
 have, unhappily, rarely seen her since she represented to my en- 
 tlmsiastic girlhood all that was wise and noble in a teacher, and 
 became the influence that more than any other shaped the course 
 of my life. She was a rare woman, so absolutely self-reliant and 
 strong in the security of her high standard of right thinking and 
 living that she could not fail to come into very close relations with 
 the young minds and hearts that looked to her for instruction 
 and guidance. She was to me not only the wonderfully efficient 
 teacher, but the tender, wise friend to whom I never turned in 
 vain for help and counsel. 
 
 I shall be very grateful for a copy of your Memorial, for I long 
 to know more of the later years of this good woman, and hope 
 that the close of her beautiful life was not shadowed by illness and 
 pain, but was rather a transition to that higher plane of being 
 towards which her soul so constantly aspired. Excuse these 
 hasty lines out of a very busy life, and believe me 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Alice Butler Gary. 
 
 20 
 
154 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 FROM MRS. C. D. MORGAN. 
 
 Wareenton, Va., Aug. 17, 1891. 
 
 My dear Miss Judd, — I received your note last week, and a 
 day or two since the bracelet came. I have never been more 
 touched and gratified than to know that my dear friend and for- 
 mer teacher thought of me during her last illness. I thought that 
 she had passed from this life long since ; and my only regret now 
 in connection with the thought of her is that I did not know that 
 she was still here, and that I might have had some communica- 
 tion with her. I know it is asking a great deal, but, if you can, 
 will you let me know some particulars concerning her ? Was she 
 not very old ? Did she retain her unusually bright intellect until 
 the close of her life ? I very often think of her, and have always 
 realized that to have been under her care was an inestimal)le 
 privilege. She was a noble woman, and I am proud, as well as 
 happy, that at the close of her beautiful, useful life she counted 
 me as worthy her special remembrance. I am much indebted to 
 you for transmitting to me her wishes and her gift. Will you do 
 me the still further favor to let me know if this acknowledgment 
 reaches you, and to tell me, if possible, a little concerning the later 
 life of my dear Miss Hall ? 
 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 CD. Morgan. 
 
 FROM MRS. IRENE A. WOODBRIDGE. 
 
 Nantucket, Aug. 30, 1892. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Commelin, — . . . I was very glad to hear of 
 the intended Memorial to Miss Hall, and shall be most anxious to 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 155 
 
 read it. Yet I hardly feel that I could add anything of interest. 
 So many years stretch between me and those far-off school-days 
 that, though she will always be to me a vivid figure, I know I 
 should fail if I tried to put into words any description of her. 
 I can shut my eyes and bring her before me as she sat so long 
 ago on the platform of the Brooklyn Heights Seminary, stately, 
 dignified, thoroughly respected by all, devotedly loved by many, 
 and I would, if I could, add my little tribute to her memory ; but 
 I must leave that to abler pens than mine. . . . 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Irene A. Woodbridge. 
 
 FROM MISS NINA JUDD. 
 
 Augusta, April 8, 1892. 
 
 Dear Mr. Abbot, — There is one of Miss Hall's personal char- 
 acteristics that I believe has not been mentioned, and, if not too 
 late, I should like to have it. This is her great love of flowers. 
 She enjoyed their cultivation, and would dig and weed about them 
 most faithfully, unmindful of fatigue, even in the later years of her 
 life. Sweet flowers were her special delight, and all through the 
 flower season she seldom failed to wear a bunch of something 
 sweet, happy if it were a bit of her favorite sweet-pea or 
 
 mignonette. . . . 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 Nina Judd. 
 
 FROM FRANCIS E. ABBOT. 
 
 To every one who will have these pages to read, it will be a cause 
 of deep regret that there is not prefixed to them a portrait of Miss 
 
156 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 Hall. A carte-de-visite photograph, printed in June, 1873, is the 
 only image of that gracious countenance remaining to me, except 
 that which is imprinted on the tablets of memory ; and for various 
 reasons it has seemed unadvisable to reproduce here a likeness 
 with which, indeed, she herself was not pleased. Again and again, 
 while she was spending her winters in my family, I begged her to 
 have a new likeness taken by some good photographer in Boston, 
 and, although she reluctantly consented, she postponed the trip 
 until it was too late. Those who well knew her may perhaps not 
 miss the aid of the visible picture in recalling her features ; but 
 those who are to come after us can never know how marvellously 
 Nature matched a noble spirit with a noble face in Arethusa 
 Hall. 
 
 Eather above than below the usual stature of woman. Miss Hall 
 possessed a dignity of carriage, a stateliness of mien, an air of 
 transparent and invincible self-respect, which " enforced involun- 
 tary homage " in all beholders ; but there was nothing forbidding 
 or repellent, nothing masculine or dismayingly " strong-minded," 
 either in her appearance or in her character. Her outward man- 
 ner and deportment were simply those of a commanding yet most 
 winning personality, — commanding, because it visibly reflected the 
 majesty of that moral law which it was her innermost nature to 
 obey ; winning, because it breathed the spirit of tender pitifulness 
 for all pain, eager helpfulness for all need, and admiring sympathy 
 for all effort or aspiration to achieve a lofty ideal. Clear and un- 
 compromising in her moral perceptions, strenuous in her demand 
 that, no matter what might happen, duty should be done and abso- 
 lute right obeyed, she was yet the most gentle and charitable of 
 beings in her judgment of the ill-doer, believing, with Socrates, that 
 no one does ill except through momentary hallucination or per- 
 manent defect of knowledge, and being constitutionally incapable 
 of understanding how any one could " know the right, and yet the 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 157 
 
 wrong pursue." This was the only important point on which she 
 and I could never quite agree. So strong was her own unalter- 
 able purpose to do whatever right she saw, that she always failed 
 to comprehend how others of an inferior moral constitution 
 could know better than they acted. Hence her quick revulsion 
 from evil-doing in the world never took the form of a lasting in- 
 dignation against the evil-doer, but always speedily softened into 
 pity for his moral ignorance, and ended in an attempt to extenu- 
 ate his moral lapse by imagining some mode in which, to him and 
 at the moment, evil itself might put on the false appearance of 
 good. No trait of her character was more marked than this in- 
 stantaneous compassion for the individual transgressor, arising out 
 of her deep conviction that it was impossible to see, and yet not to 
 venerate and obey, the inviolable obligation of natural moral law. 
 It deprived of all austerity the inexorable and clear-eyed distinc- 
 tion between right and wrong which she inherited from her Puritan 
 ancestry, and made her one of the most lenient and merciful judges 
 of human frailty. Doubtless it was this trait which, combined 
 with her quick sympathies and strong affections, gave her so 
 powerful a hold on the hearts of her pupils ; for these together 
 made her one of the most lovely and most lovable of characters, 
 while her abiding sense of personal dignity and the omnipresent 
 influence of her rare intellectual endowments prevented the attach- 
 ment of her young friends from degenerating into mere fondness. 
 Foremost among these intellectual endowments was the capacity 
 of comprehending principles and the incapacity of resting contented 
 with a mass of details until principles were reached. It was a 
 true self-knowledge that made her write in her journal, as quoted 
 above : " My mind is highly philosophical ; it naturally had great 
 grasping power." She used to say of herself that she possessed 
 no great originality of conception, but that she did possess great 
 power of appreciation and an insatiable thirst for wide and lofty 
 
158 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 generalization. If by " originality " is meant the power and the 
 impulse to create a great thought-system, what she said of herself 
 was true ; but, if it means the power and the impulse to struggle 
 out of an inherited thought-system, seen to be wholly inadequate 
 to the demands of truth, into moral and spiritual convictions in 
 harmony with the facts and laws of the universe as revealed by 
 modern science, then she was highly original, for this she did. In 
 fact, her whole real life was lived apart from her immediate en- 
 vironment, in a spiritual solitude which was yet peopled by ideas 
 and ideals for which she neither found nor expected sympathy in 
 ordinary society ; yet no one could be more grateful for such sym- 
 pathy when she found it here and there, for the craving for intel- 
 lectual and spiritual sympathy was the profoundest need of her 
 nature. With it she was happy ; without it she suffered and 
 starved. If it was not to be got in common life, she sought it in 
 books ; and reading thoughtful books became almost her ruling 
 passion. But she was a true woman for all that, and needed, de- 
 spite the makeshift of books, that the thought for which she hun- 
 gered should be left in no lifeless formula of words, but embodied 
 in living minds. This was the secret of her profound longing, 
 avowed in her journals, for intellectual society and the com- 
 panionship of kindred spirits. Not that she was indisposed to 
 enter into the innocent gayeties and commonplaces of every-day 
 life ; on the contrary, she was fond of these in due measure, and 
 shared with unaffected enjoyment all the interests and pleasures 
 of the social circles in which she moved. But these alone were 
 not enough to gratify the unappeasable demand of her nature for 
 that higher life of the soul which lies above the level of mere con- 
 ventionality, and is at home nowhere but in the pure atmosphere 
 of " eternal verities." To her, knowledge of spiritual truth was 
 more than meat or raiment ; and never was a human life spent in 
 more earnest, more humble, more tireless search for the divine. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 159 
 
 Tliat she found at last what she most of all longed to find is 
 shown in these inexpressibly touching words, in the last letter 
 she ever wrote to me, and, I believe, the last letter she ever wrote 
 at all : " I have in my heart and mind your helping words of these 
 many years. I know all that can be said. I trust in Infinite 
 Wisdom, be the result what it may. Those mental anxieties of 
 former times have passed away. 1 have peace of spirit. But this 
 bodily suffering I am too weak to bear." 
 
 Appleton's " Cyclopgedia of American Biography " gives the fol- 
 lowing brief account (not entirely accurate) of the chief points of 
 Miss Hall's career : — 
 
 " HALL, Arethusa, educator, b. in Norwich (now Hunting- 
 ton), Hampshire co., Mass., 13th Oct., 1802. She had limited 
 opportunities for obtaining an education, but subsequently made 
 up for early deficiencies by private study. At the age of nine slie 
 became a member of the family of Rev. Sylvester Judd, of West- 
 hampton, Mass. She was principal of the Greenland, N. H., 
 Academy in 1826, and afterwards of that at Haverhill, Mass., 
 where she was the teacher of the poet Whittier. She continued 
 to teach in New England schools until 1849, and in that year 
 came to the Brooklyn Female Academy (now Packer Institute), and 
 after two years' service was associated with Prof. Alonzo Gray in 
 the Brooklyn Heights Seminary for Young Ladies, where she re- 
 mained as associate principal until 1860. Failing health soon after- 
 wards compelled her to retire. She published ' Thoughts of Blaise 
 Pascal' (Andover, 1846); 'A Manual of Morals' (1849) ; 'The 
 Literary Reader ' (Boston, 1850) ; ' Life of the Rev. Sylvester Judd ' 
 (Boston, 1854) ; and ' Memorabilia of Sylvester Judd, Sr.' (printed 
 privately, Northampton, 1882)." 
 
 My personal acquaintance with Miss Hall began with a letter 
 from her, dated May 24, 1868, when she was already sixty-five 
 
100 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 years of age, and a second letter, dated Dec. 10, 1869. We never 
 met until Feb. 27, 1870, when she came to speak to me after 
 a lecture of mine in Horticultural Hall, Boston, on " Jesus and 
 Socrates in the History of Religion." In October, 1872, she visited 
 my family in Toledo, Ohio, and remained about a week. When my 
 family removed from Toledo to Cambridge in the summer of 1873, 
 she, having no winter home of her own, urgently solicited us to 
 receive her during the cold months as an inmate in our own home ; 
 and ever after she spent several months of eaeli year with us, wel- 
 comed, cherished, and beloved by all, until May 8, 1890, when, borne 
 downstairs to the waiting carriage in the strong and tender arms of 
 her nephew, she crossed our threshold with tears, never to return. 
 
 How can I tell tlie story of this long and sacred friendship ? I 
 shrink from the very thouglit. Something of what that friendship 
 meant to me would be disclosed in the frequent letters that went 
 to her in the months of separation ; but these I cannot bring my- 
 self to lay before unknown eyes. What it meant to her, however, 
 is in some small measure indicated in this terse epitome of a soul- 
 revolution, written from Northampton, June 9, 1889 : " As you 
 know, when I first became acquainted with you and your ideas, I 
 was upset and bewildered by Herbert Spencer's ' Unknowable.' 
 The foundations of my faith were wrenched away, and I was 
 wretched in heart and mind. You came to me in the right 
 moment. You gave reasonableness and stability to my intel- 
 lectual conclusions, and rest to my heart by your kindness and 
 sympathy. Since I have known you, I have arrived at a rest, a 
 peace, such as I never knew before. We understood each other 
 in the realms of philosophic thought and in the highest aspirations 
 of spiritual life. I was at first shocked at your announcing your- 
 self ' squarely outside of Christianity,' but I have come to stand as 
 squarely there as yourself. Indeed, I wrote to my friend Mrs. 
 Lawrence lately, who had rather challenged an avowal of my faith, 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 161 
 
 that ' Christianity seemed to me only a more civilized heathenism,' 
 as truly it does more and more, as I see how the Bible is made a 
 fetich, and Jesus is given the place of the avatars in the so-called 
 heathen religions. All the historical religions seem to me differing 
 only in degree, proportioned to the knowledge and development of 
 those who originated and upheld them." 
 
 To Miss Hall it was a great pleasure to read aloud, while to me 
 it was a great pleasure to listen ; and in the long winter evenings 
 she used to read to me in my library, for hours at a time, books of 
 the most varied character, pausing to discuss whatever questions 
 of philosophy, of social reform, of poetry, of art, of religion, or of 
 any phase of the higher life of humanity, might be suggested by 
 the work from which she was reading. Often the discussion would 
 go to the very depths of feeling and thought, and absorb most of 
 the evening, even to eleven or twelve o'clock. These readings were 
 to both of us a source of the greatest profit and enjoyment, and 
 she looked forward to them eagerly during the rest of the year. 
 How wide a field of literature was thus covered in the course of 
 many years will appear from the following list, which I copy ver- 
 batim from a manuscript left among the private papers which she 
 bequeathed to me : — 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS 
 
 Read to Francis Ellingwood Abbot by Arethusa Hall, 
 
 Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 1877. 
 Jan. Transcendentalism in New England. — Frothingham. 
 
 1878. 
 
 Feb. Les Miserables.' — Victor Hugo. 
 March. Picciola. — X. B. Saintine. • 
 
 21 
 
162 
 
 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 Consuelo. — George Sand. 
 
 The Countess of Riidolstadt. — George Sand. 
 
 Memoir of Gen. W. F. Bartlett. — General Palfrey. 
 
 Landolin. — Auerbach. 
 
 Is Life worth Living? — Mallock. 
 
 Spinoza. — Mallock. 
 
 1879. 
 
 The Fisher Maiden. — Bjornson. 
 
 King Rene's Daughter. — H. Hertz. 
 
 Life and Death of Jason. — William Morris. 
 
 The Scarlet Letter. — Hawthorne. 
 
 Ion. — Talfourd. 
 
 Titan, — J. P. Richter. 
 
 Corinne. — Mme. de Stael. 
 
 Nadeschda. — Runeberg. 
 
 The Laocoon. — Lessing. 
 
 The Lad}' of the Aroostook. — Howells. 
 
 The Neighbors. — Miss Bremer. 
 
 Evangeline. — Longfellovt. 
 " Children of the Lord's Supper. — Longfellow. 
 
 " The Spanish Student. — Longfellow. 
 
 " Life of S. J. Ma}'. — Mumford. 
 
 " Life of Rev. Sylvester Judd. — A. H. 
 
 1880. 
 
 March. The Light of Asia. — Arnold. 
 
 " Jane Ej're. — Miss Bronte. 
 
 " Wilhelm Meister (not finished). — Goethe. 
 
 " Hannah. — Miss Mulock. 
 
 " John Halifax. — Miss Mulock. 
 
 March. 
 April. 
 
 May. 
 
 Jan. 
 
 Feb. 
 
 March. 
 
 April. 
 
 1881. 
 
 Jan. Bricks without Straw. — Tourgek. 
 ' ' The Story of Troy. — Benjamin. 
 
 " Adam Bede. — George Eliot. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 1^3 
 
 Jan. Romola. — George Eliot. 
 
 Feb. Bleak House. — Dickens. 
 
 March. Tale of Two Cities. — Dickens. 
 
 The Count of Monte Cristo. — Dumas. 
 
 April. Rasselas. — S. Johnson. 
 
 Nov. The Heart of Midlothian. — Scott. 
 
 Dec. Life and Times of Mme. de Stael. — Stevens. 
 
 '' The French Revolution. — De Stael. 
 
 1882. 
 
 Jan. Germany. — De Stael. 
 Feb. History of Civilization. — Buckle. 
 April. Old Curiosity Shop. — Dickens. 
 Dec. History of the Formation of the Constitution 
 of the United States. — Bancroft. 
 
 1883. 
 
 Jan. Dr. Grimshaw's Secret. — Hawthorne. 
 
 Feb. Caleb Williams. — Godwin. 
 
 '^ Utopia. — Sir T. More. 
 
 March. The Faerie Queene. — Spenser. 
 
 " Extracts from Chaucer. 
 
 " Extracts from Dry den. 
 
 " Cato. ■ — Addison. 
 
 " The Complete Angler. — Walton. 
 
 " Queen Mab. — Shelley. 
 
 " Lady of the Lake. — Scott. 
 
 " Paradise Lost. — Milton. 
 
 " The Task. — Cowper. 
 
 " Night Thoughts (in part). — Young. 
 
 April. Jerusalem Delivered. — Tasso. 
 
 " Historical Plays. — Shakspere. 
 
 iVou. Sartor Resartus. — Carlyle. 
 
 " French Revolution. — Carlyle. 
 
 Dec. English Literature (2 vols.). — Taine. 
 
164 
 
 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 1884. 
 
 Feb. The Divine Comedj''. — Dante. 
 
 " The Iliad and Odyssey. — Homer. 
 
 March, The ^neid. — Virgil. 
 
 " The Marble Faun. — Hawthorne. 
 
 " Blithesdale Romance. — Hawthorne. 
 
 ' ' Monaldi. — Allston. 
 
 " Paul Felton. — Dana. 
 
 April. Aurora Leigh. — Mrs. Browning. 
 
 "■ Extracts from Irving. 
 
 " Elsie Venner. — Dr. Holmes. 
 
 1885. 
 
 Jan. First two Books, Paradise Lost. — Milton. 
 
 ' ' Tale of Two Cities. — Dickens. 
 
 " Silas Marner. — George Eliot. 
 
 Feb. Origin and Destinj- of Man. — John Fiske. 
 
 "• Life of Samuel Johnson. — Boswell. 
 
 March. Life of Carlyle. — ■ Froude. 
 
 April. Life of George Eliot. — Cross. 
 
 " Our Mutual Friend. — Dickens. 
 
 " Hard Times. — Dickens. 
 
 May. Cricket on the Hearth. — Dickens. 
 
 " Nathan the Wise. — Lessing. 
 
 1886. 
 
 Jan. The Faerie Queene. — Spenser. 
 Feb. Romona, — Mrs. Jackson. 
 March dii^di April. Decline and Fall of Roman Empire. — Gibbon. 
 3Iay. Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains. — Miss 
 
 MURFREE. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 165 
 
 1887. 
 
 Jan. Early Letters of Carlyle. — Norton. 
 
 " Open Secret of Carlyle's Life. — Larkin. 
 
 " War and Peace (Part I.). — TolstoL 
 
 " Heroes in Histor}'. — Carlyle. 
 
 Feb. Measure for Measure. — Shakspere. 
 
 " Life of John Sterling. — Carlyle. 
 
 " A Winter's Tale. — Shakspere. 
 
 " Conversations with Goethe. — Eckermann. 
 
 "• Correspondence of Schiller and Goethe. 
 
 March. Correspondence with a Child. — Goethe and Bettina. 
 
 " The Piccolomini and Death of Wallenstein. — Schiller. 
 
 " Correspondence of Carlyle and Emerson,' 
 
 ' ' Manfred. — Byron. 
 
 " Vita Nuova. — Dante. 
 
 " Cain, and Bride of Ab3dos. — Byron. 
 
 ' ' Essay on Man and Universal Prayer. — Pope. 
 
 April. Comedies. — Moliere. 
 
 " Spanish Gyps}'. — George Eliot. 
 
 " Midsummer's Night's Dream. — Shakspere. 
 
 " All 's Well that Ends Well. — Shakspere. 
 
 " The Tempest. — Shakspere. 
 
 May. As You Like It. — Shakspere. 
 
 Dec. Memoir of Emerson. — Cabot. 
 
 1888. 
 
 Jan. Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. — Francis Darwin. 
 
 " The Scarlet Letter. — Hawthorne. 
 
 " The Marble Faun. — Hawthorne. 
 
 Feb. Louis XL — Irving's Arrangement. 
 
 " The Minister's Wooing. — Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 March. The Bleak House. — Dickens. 
 
 " Our Mutual Friend. — Dickens. 
 
 April. Felix Holt. — George Eliot. 
 
166 TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 
 
 April. Pride and Prejudice. — Miss Austen. 
 " Pickwick Papers. — Dickens. 
 
 1889. 
 
 Jan. Twice-Told Tales. — Hawthokne. 
 
 Feb. The American Commonwealth. — Bryce. 
 
 March. Macanlay's Essay's. 
 
 April. Story of an African Farm. — Olive Schreiner. 
 
 " Essays and (some) English History. — Macaulay. 
 
 ' ' Measure for Measure. — Shakspere. " 
 
 N^ov. ) 
 
 j^ V History of English People. — Green. 
 
 1890. 
 
 Feb. History of English People. — Green. 
 
 March. Middlemarch. — George Eliot. 
 
 April. Tales. — Dickens. 
 April. 
 
 -»i ' >- The Faerie Queene. — Spenser. 
 
 In all the vast range of human interests covered by these many 
 works, Miss Hall's mind ever reverted to that which is most per- 
 manent and universal of them all, — the development and exalta- 
 tion of man's spiritual nature. In her opinion, nothing was of 
 worth if it did not tend to elevate the mind to loftier conceptions 
 of the moral meaning of life. From her childhood, religion was 
 to her the one omnipresent fact and underlying significance of all 
 human experience; and it cost her, as her secret and sacredly pri- 
 vate self-communings in her journals of many years most patheti- 
 cally show, unspeakable struggle and pain to work her way out 
 of the original darkness into the final light, — out of inherited 
 Christianity into the Free Religion which she won at last by her 
 own indomitable loyalty to thought. 
 
TRIBUTES FROM FRIENDS. 167 
 
 This point, I must emphasize, in simple justice to her incom- 
 parable fidelity to truth. Not to a lower religion than Christianity, 
 least of all to an abandonment of religion altogether, but rather to 
 a religion higher, broader, deeper, at once more reasonable and 
 more spiritual, because truer and freer, — that was the religious 
 progress of this brave, loyal, tender, upward-looking, and upward- 
 living soul. In it is mirrored the slow but sure progress of the 
 universal human spirit, rising irresistibly out of the best of to-day 
 into the better of to-morrow. Never was an individual soul gradu- 
 ated from this school of earthly life that was better fitted, by a 
 lifelong and consecrated self-surrender to the Spirit of Truth, to 
 enter into the higher and sublimer opportunities of the life beyond 
 the grave. Though no likeness of the noble countenance of our 
 friend may be prefixed to this Memorial, which has been born out 
 of the veneration, gratitude, and love of many souls, yet may we 
 here, at the end, recognize the speaking portrait of her spiritual 
 lineaments in the poet's unconscious prophecy of Arethusa Hall : 
 
 " I saw her, upon nearer view, 
 A Spirit, yet a Woman too ! 
 A Being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 A Traveller between life and death; 
 The reason firm, the temperate will, 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; 
 A perfect AVoman, nobly planned, 
 To warn, to comfort, and command; 
 And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
 With something of an angel light."