nything that ever happened in Denmark, or
Browning's Saul of anything that could have happened in Judea, a
thousand years before Christ? To Lowell, Mrs. Child was and remained
"Philothea." Higginson says that the lines in which Lowell describes
her in the "Fable for Critics," are the one passage of pure poetry it
contains, and at the same time the most charming sketch ever made of
Mrs. Child.

"There comes Philothea, her face all aglow;
She has just been dividing some poor creature's woe,
And can't tell which pleases her most--to relieve
His want, or his story to hear and believe.
No doubt against many deep griefs she prevails,
For her ear is the refuge of destitute tales;
She knows well that silence is sorrow's best food,
And that talking draws off from the heart its bad blood."

In 1836, Mr. Child went abroad to study the Beet Sugar industry in
France, Holland, and Germany and, after an absence of a year and a
half, returned to engage in Beet Sugar Farming at Northampton, Mass.
He received a silver medal for raw and refined sugar at the Exhibition
of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association in 1839, and a
premium of $100 from the Massachusetts Agricultural society the same
year. He published a well written and edifying book upon "Beet Sugar,"
giving the results of his investigations and experiments. It was an
enterprise of great promise, but has taken half a century, in this
country, to become a profitable industry.

Mrs. Child's letters from 1838 to 1841 are dated from Northampton,
where she is assisting to work out the "Beet Sugar" experiment. It
would have been a rather grinding experience to any one with less
cheerfulness than Mrs. Child. She writes, June 9, 1838, "A month
elapsed before I stepped into the woods which were all around me
blooming with flowers. I did not go to Mr. Dwight's ordination, nor
have I yet been to meeting. He has been to see me however, and though
I left my work in the midst and sat down with a dirty gown and hands
somewhat grimmed, we were high in the blue in fifteen minutes." Mr.
Dwight was Rev. John S. Dwight, Brook Farmer, and editor of _Dwight's
Journal of Music_.

Half of her published letters are addressed to Mr. or Mrs. Francis G.
Shaw, parents of Col. Robert G. Shaw. Here is one in 1840, to Mr.
Shaw, after she had made a trip to Boston. It will be interesting as
presenting a new aspect of Mrs. Child's nature: "The only thing,
except