eason, found its way to the table. My own tastes and mode of life were
simplicity personified, but my stomach revolted against a dietary as
unvaried as it was unappetizing. An old servant who heard that I
attended the Destitute Asylum every week was loud in her lamentations
that "poor dear Miss Spence was so reduced that she had to go to the
Destitute every week for rations!" My thankfulness that she had
misconceived the position stirred me to leave no stone unturned for the
betterment of the destitute bill of fare. I was successful, and the
varied diet now enjoyed bears witness to the humanitarian views of all
the members of the board, who were as anxious to help in the reform as
I was. My heart has always gone out to the poor old folk whose faces
bear the impress of long years of strenuous toil and who at the close
of life at least should find a haven of restfulness and peace in the
State for whose advancement they have laboured in the past.

She was a witty woman who divided autobiographies into two classes...
autobiographies and ought-not-to-biographies--but I am sure she never
attempted to write one herself. There is so much in one's life that
looms large from a personal point of view about which other people
would care little, and the difficulty often arises, not so much about
what to put in as what to leave out.

How much my personal interests had widened during my absence from home
could be gauged somewhat by the enormous increase in my correspondence
after my return. American, Canadian, English, and Continental
correspondents have kept me for many years well informed on reform and
kindred subjects; and the letters I have received, and the replies they
have drawn from me, go far to make me doubt the accuracy of the
accepted belief that "letter writing has become a lost art." A full
mind with a facile pen makes letter writing a joy, and both of these
attributes I think I may fairly claim. My correspondence with Alfred
Cridge was kept up till his death a few years ago, and his son,
following worthily in the footsteps of a noble father, has taken up the
broken threads of the lifework of my friend, and is doing his utmost to
carry it to a successful issue. My love of reading, which has been a
characteristic feature of my life, found full scope for expression in
the piles of books which reached us from all parts of the world. It has
always been my desire to keep abreast of current literature, and this,
by means of m