the Via Gregoriana, where she cordially
received a host of friends and visitors of all nations. In 1859 she
was called to England by her sister's fatal illness; in 1866 she was
again summoned to England to attend the death-bed of her mother. In
1860 she was playing in all the chief cities of America. Three years
later she again visited America, her chief object being to act for the
benefit of the Sanitary Commission, and aid the sick and wounded
victims of the civil war. During the late years of her life she
appeared before the public more as a dramatic reader than as an
actress. There were long intervals between her theatrical engagements;
she seemed to quit her profession only to return to it after an
interval with renewed appetite, and she incurred reproaches because of
the frequency of her farewells, and the doubt that prevailed as to
whether her "last appearances" were really to be the "very last." It
was not until 1874, however, that she took final leave of the New York
stage, amid extraordinary enthusiasm, with many poetic and other
ceremonies. She was the subject of addresses in prose and verse. Mr.
Bryant, after an eloquent speech, tendered her a laurel wreath bound
with white ribbon resting upon a purple velvet cushion, with a
suitable inscription embroidered in golden letters; a torchbearers'
procession escorted her from the theatre to her hotel; she was
serenaded at midnight, and in her honor Fifth Avenue blazed with
fireworks. After this came farewells to Philadelphia, Boston and other
cities, and to these succeeded readings all over the country. It is to
be said, however, that incessant work had become a necessity with her,
not because of its pecuniary results, but as a means of obtaining
mental relief or comparative forgetfulness for a season. During the
last five or six years of her life she was afflicted with an incurable
and agonizing malady. Under most painful conditions she toiled
unceasingly, moving rapidly from place to place, and passing days and
nights in railway journeys. In a letter to a friend, she writes: "I do
get so dreadfully depressed about myself, and all things seem so
hopeless to me at those times, that I pray God to take me quickly at
any moment, so that I may not torture those I love by letting them see
my pain. But when the dark hour passes, and I try to forget by
constant occupation that I have such a load near my heart, then it is
not so bad." She died almost painlessly at last on