--the lifelong illness of
her daughter from a chronic and incurable disease. She told me, when I
was at her house, that she kept on lecturing, and accepting
invitations, to divert her mind somewhat. She felt at times that she
could not leave her unfortunate child behind, when she should be
called from earth, but she was enabled to drive that thought away.
From a child, always helping others, self-sacrificing, heroic, endowed
with marvellous energy and sympathy, hers was a most exceptional life;
now "Victor Palms" are her right.

I spent one day at the famous Concord School of Philosophy during its
first season. Of course I understood nothing that was going on.

Emerson, then a mere wreck of his former self, was present, cared for
by his wife or his daughter Ellen. Alcott made some most remarkable
statements, as: "We each can decide when we will ascend." Then he
would look around as if to question all, and add: "Is it not so? Is it
not so?" I remember another of his mystic utterances: "When the mind
is izzing, it is thinking things. Is it not so? Is it not so?" Also,
"When we get angry or lose our temper, then fierce four-footed beasts
come out of our mouths, do they not, do they not?"

After Mr. Harris, the great educational light, had closed his remarks,
and had asked for questions, one lady timidly arose and inquired: "Can
an atom be said to be outside or inside of potentiality?"

He calmly replied that "it could be said to be either inside or
outside potentiality, as we might say of potatoes in a hat; they are
either inside or outside the hat." That seemed to satisfy her
perfectly.

Mr. Frank B. Sanborn read his lecture on American Literature, and I
ventured to ask: "How would you define literature?"

He said: "Anything written that gives permanent pleasure." And then
as he was a relative, I inquired, but probably was rather pert: "Would
a bank check, if it were large enough, be literature?" which was
generally considered as painfully trifling.

Jones of Jacksonville was on the program, and talked and talked, but
as I could not catch one idea, I cannot report.

It was awfully hot on that hill with the sun shining down through the
pine roof, so I thought one day enough.

As I walked down the hill, I heard a man who seemed to have a lot of
hasty pudding in his mouth, say in answer to a question from the lady
with him: "Why, if you can't understand that, you can have no idea of
the first principles (this with