The incident at her
burial is alluded to in a sonnet written by
William P. Andrews:—
“Freedom!
she knew thy summons, and obeyed
That
clarion voice as yet scarce heard of men;
Gladly
she joined thy red-cross service when
Honor
and wealth must at thy feet be laid
Onward
with faith undaunted, undismayed
By
threat or scorn, she toiled with hand and brain
To
make thy cause triumphant, till the chain
Lay
broken, and for her the freedmen prayed.
Nor
yet she faltered; in her tender care
She
took us all; and wheresoe’er she went,
Blessings,
and Faith, and Beauty followed there,
E’en
to the end, where she lay down content;
And
with the gold light of a life more fair,
Twin
bows of promise o’er her grave were blest.”
The letters in this collection constitute but a small
part of her large correspondence. They have
been gathered up and arranged by the hands of dear
relatives and friends as a fitting memorial of one
who wrote from the heart as well as the head, and
who held her literary reputation subordinate always
to her philanthropic aim to lessen the sum of human
suffering, and to make the world better for her living.
If they sometimes show the heat and impatience of
a zealous reformer, they may well be pardoned in consideration
of the circumstances under which they were written,
and of the natural indignation of a generous nature
in view of wrong and oppression. If she touched
with no very reverent hand the garment hem of dogmas,
and held to the spirit of Scripture rather than its
letter, it must be remembered that she lived in a time
when the Bible was cited in defence of slavery, as
it is now in Utah in support of polygamy; and she
may well be excused for some degree of impatience with
those who, in the tithing of mint and anise and cummin,
neglected the weightier matters of the law of justice
and mercy.
Of the men and women directly associated with the
beloved subject of this sketch, but few are now left
to recall her single-hearted devotion to apprehended
duty, her unselfish generosity, her love of all beauty
and harmony, and her trustful reverence, free from
pretence and cant. It is not unlikely that the
surviving sharers of her love and friendship may feel
the inadequateness of this brief memorial, for I close
it with the consciousness of having failed to fully
delineate the picture which my memory holds of a wise
and brave, but tender and loving woman, of whom it
might well have been said, in the words of the old
Hebrew text, “Many, daughters have done virtuously,
but thou excellest them all.”
On the occasion of the
seventy-fifth birthday of Dr. Holmes The
Critic of New York
collected personal tributes from friends and
admirers of that author.
My own contribution was as follows:—
