vehement letter, commencing with
threats of future damnation, and ending with assuring her that "no
Southerner, after reading her letter to Governor Wise, ought to read a
line of her composition, or touch a magazine which bore her name in its
list of contributors." To this she wrote a calm, dignified reply,
declining to dwell on the fierce invectives of her assailant, and wishing
her well here and hereafter. She would not debate the specific merits or
demerits of a man whose body was in charge of the courts, and whose
reputation was sure to be in charge of posterity. "Men," she continues,
"are of small consequence in comparison with principles, and the
principle for which John Brown died is the question at issue between us."
These letters were soon published in pamphlet form, and had the immense
circulation of 300,000 copies.

In 1867 she published _A Romance of the Republic_, a story of the days of
slavery; powerful in its delineation of some of the saddest as well as
the most dramatic conditions of master and slave in the Southern States.
Her husband, who had been long an invalid, died in 1874. After his death
her home, in winter especially, became a lonely one, and in 1877 she
began to spend the cold months in Boston.

Her last publication was in 1878, when her _Aspirations of the World_, a
book of selections, on moral and religious subjects, from the literature
of all nations and times, was given to the public. The introduction,
occupying fifty pages, shows, at threescore and ten, her mental vigor
unabated, and is remarkable for its wise, philosophic tone and felicity
of diction. It has the broad liberality of her more elaborate work on
the same subject, and in the mellow light of life's sunset her words seem
touched with a tender pathos and beauty. "All we poor mortals," she
says, "are groping our way through paths that are dim with shadows; and
we are all striving, with steps more or less stumbling, to follow some
guiding star. As we travel on, beloved companions of our pilgrimage
vanish from our sight, we know not whither; and our bereaved hearts utter
cries of supplication for more light. We know not where Hermes
Trismegistus lived, or who he was; but his voice sounds plaintively
human, coming up from the depths of the ages, calling out, 'Thou art God!
and thy man crieth these things unto Thee!' Thus closely allied in our
sorrows and limitations, in our aspirations and hopes, surely we ought
not to be