rkable
freshness as well as vigor. She also translated from the French
several stories illustrative of various social reforms, and in 1867,
being then seventy-five years old, she made a somewhat abridged
translation of Lamartine's poetical biography of Joan of Arc. This was
Sarah's most finished literary work, and aroused in her great
enthusiasm. "Sometimes," she writes, "it seems to infuse into my soul
a mite of that divinity which filled hers. Joan of Arc stands
pre-eminent in my mind above all other mortals save the Christ."

When the book was finished, Sarah was most anxious to get it
published, "in order," she writes, "to revive the memory in this
country of the extraordinary woman who was an embodiment of faith,
courage, fortitude, and love rarely equalled and never excelled."

But she had many more pressing demands on her income at that time, and
had nearly given up the project, when a gentleman from Lynn called to
see her, to whom she read a few pages of the narrative. He was so much
pleased with it that he undertook to have it published. It was brought
out in a few weeks by Adams & Co., of Boston, in a prettily bound
volume of one hundred and six pages, and had, I believe, a large sale.
Several long and many short notices of it appeared in papers all over
the country, all highly complimentary to the venerable translator.
These notices surprised Sarah as much as they delighted her, and she
expressed herself as deeply thankful that she had translated the work.

A letter from Sarah Grimke to Jane Smith, written in 1850, contains
the following paragraph: "We have just heard of the death of our
brother Henry, a planter and a kind master. His slaves will feel his
loss deeply. They haunt me day and night. Sleeplessness is my portion,
thinking what will become of them. Oh, the horrors of slavery!"

When she penned those lines, Sarah little imagined how great a mockery
was the title, "kind master," she gave her brother. She little
suspected that three of those slaves whose uncertain destiny haunted
her pillow were that brother's own children, and that he died leaving
the shackles on them--slaves to his heir, their white brother, though
he _did_ stipulate that they and their mother should never be sold.
Well might Sarah exclaim: "Oh, the horrors of slavery!" but in deepest
humiliation and anguish of spirit would the words have been uttered
had she known the truth. Montague Grimke inherited his brothers with
the rest