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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

The
Frederick W. and
Carrie S. Beinecke
Fund for
Western Americana

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MEMORIAL

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EDITED BY HER HUSBAND,
fgorse gfcuxtrf, % 15., ffi. 9.

* The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me.*1— Psalm cxxxviii: 8.
Her text for the year 1888.

ADVERTISEMENT.
For presentation to old friends and colaborers in Christian Work. Some copies left
at MACFARLANE'S for sale, the entire receipts to be paid into the
Treasury of the Detroit Woman's Christian Association.

Copyright, 1889, by
MORSE STEWART.

THIS BOOK IS
DEDICATED TO MY CHILDREN,
FOR "WHOM IT HAS BEEN SPECIALLY COMPILED, WITH THE HOPE THAT THE
RECORD OF A NOBLE LIFE MAT INSPIRE THEM TO FOLLOW
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF THEIR NOW SAINTED
MOTHER,
AND THAT BY THEM ALSO, THE HERITAGE OF PIOUS ANCESTRY
MAY BE TRANSMITTED TO THE GENERATIONS
FOLLOWING. MORSE STEWART.

CONTENTS.

PAGE.
DCDICATION, ... . . 5
INTRODUCTION  . 7
BIOGRAPHICAL SKCTCH, . . .11
FUNCRAL ADDRSSS, ReV, Dr. Kellogg, . 20
TRIBUTCS  27
LETTERS OF CONDOLSNCC, ... "36
4.
MRS. STC WART'S LCTTCRS, . . . .44
To l|er Fan\ily; her HUsbarid ; K. S., Jr.;
I. G. B. S. ; M. B. S. ; R. S. S. ; her brother,
H. JVL. D. ; her riephe^ arid hjs itiife ; JVLr,
arid Mrs. S. W. D., arid to a friend. Arid
t\er letter ori tl\e loss of tl\e Prohibitory
Hirieridrr\eryt. (T)l5Qr;CC/1|^E0US H/I^ITINQS.
ADDRCSS OF WCLCOMC TO MISSIONARY
CONYCNTION,  78
ADDRCSS TO W. C. T. U. CONYCNTION, ' . 83
TRIBUTC TO 'MRS. GILLIAN, ... 85

VI CONTENTS. PAGE.
MY FIRST SABBATH SCHOOL CLASS-, . 87
WHO CAN PROTGCT THE CHILDRGN ? . 95
DANGEROUS BOOKS  99
WHO ARE THE POOR OF THE CHURCH OF
CHRIST?  106
CHARLGS DICKENS  108
A LONGLY OLD MAN, . . 112
TRIP TO CALIFORNIA, . .121
LETTERS FROM ABROAD, . . .243
A SONG FOR THG UNION  298
THE OLD AND THE NGW YGAR, . . 302
EXTRACT FROM MRS. STGWART'S WILL, 304
IN MEMORIAM, . .... 305
ICCiJSSFJpSIOKS.
ISABGLLA G. D. STGWART, . . Frontispiece
THG CALIFORNIA LIKGNESS, . opp. page 152

INTRODUCTION.

Introduction.

Mrs. Stewart died on the morning of the 2Yth of May,
1888, after three days' illness, at the " Oakland," St. Clair,
Michigan, where she had gone two weeks before for the pur
pose of rest and recuperation of strength, which had been
impaired by reason of the prolonged illness of two members
of her family. Previous to the month of December, 1887,
she had been in better health for a number of years than
throughout all of her married life. Through her wonderful
energy and by careful systemization of labor she made the
most out of these years in religious and philanthropic work in
which she delighted. Indeed, sickness seemed no impediment
to her efforts in whatever direction turned, for much of all
that she accomplished was through her pen ; and this was
ever available, even when confined to bed by illness.
She was active in all that concerned the moral and religious
interests of society, and by many persons had come to be
regarded a prime factor in giving the starting impetus to an
enterprise, as well as the prolonged sustaining force necessary
to carry it to a successful issue. And yet while thus occu
pied, the management of her large and somewhat bewildering
household was in no way neglected. Indeed, the words of
Solomon, " She looketh well to the ways of her household,"
are eminently appropriate of her.
In preparing a memorial of Mrs. Stewart, it is desirable to
present as vividly as possible those personal characteristics
which gave to her such a marked individuality ; and it is
believed that no better means can be used for this purpose
than her writings, epistolary and miscellaneous. Letters to

viii INTRODUCTION.
her family and personal friends are especially suited to give
the domestic and home side of her life. In order to show her
vivid descriptive powers and fine appreciation of, the beauti
ful in nature and art, her lively, vivacious humor, and her
happy faculty of adapting herself to persons, places and cir
cumstances, her miscellaneous writings, and especially letters
of travel, are given, among which is a full text of California
letters, written seventeen years ago.
Mrs. Stewart inherited among other gifts a rare poetic tal
ent ; she was, however, sharply critical, and would not ven
ture upon this field of literature without more pains given to
cultivation of style than her active life and daily routine of
work allowed. Still, at times, the spirit of the muses found
utterance as stirring occasions called it out. Her poetic
imagination and vigor of expression are admirably shown in
a " Song for the Union," written for a public meeting of the
citizens of Detroit on the breaking out of our civil war ; and
the deep pathos, rising into exalted hope, of the poem enti
tled " A Requiem and a Welcome of the Old and the New
Year," at the close of the war, gives evidence of no mean
order of talent in poesy. Yet, when asked if she wrote
poetry, her reply was, " I sometimes write verses."
If in any one quality of mind Mrs. Stewart excelled, it
was that of courage, that "firmness of spirit and swell of
soul " which knew no fear in the presence of danger ; that
intrepid firmness which boldly faced whatever obstacles lay
in her pathway, and secured success to all her undertakings.
It is scarcely necessary to speak of her religious character
in a community where she was so well known. That she was
deeply imbued with the vital doctrines of Christianity, all
know. The truth and consequent importance of these doc
trines so impressed her that she sought by the use of all
proper means to bring them to the apprehension of those
who were ignorant of or indifferent towards them. She
counted not her own ease and comfort when they conflicted

INTRODUCTION. IX
with what she felt to be the duty of every Christian in
carrying to others the blessed messages of love and mercy
from God to man. With her, religion was not a sentiment,
but the highest principle; yet she was not narrow in her
views, but broad enough to embrace in Christian love any
one in whom the image of Christ was reflected.
If it were possible to present a view of the two well worn
Bibles, her daily companions for the last seventeen years,
with the inscriptions which cover the fly leaves, and the mar
ginal references and commentaries on the text, a better idea
might thereby be given of her close study of the Scriptures,
and her deep religious experience, than by any other means.
From lack of space, but few of the many beautiful and
touching letters of sympathy which have been received are
printed here, the wish being rather to devote this book to her
own writings. • M. S.

THE Following Biographical Sketch (supplemented by some addi
tional facts) is taken by permission 'from the forthcoming edition
of Parmer's History of Detroit and Michigan.
&Xxs. ptorse JlljewraKt.
The history of the charities of Detroit may be appro
priately concluded with a brief sketch of the life of
Isabella Graham Duffield Stewart, only daughter of Eev.
George Duffield, D. D., and Isabella Graham Bethune Duf
field. Mrs. Stewart was notably prominent in the found
ing of several of the most .successful of the city charities,
and greatly influential in a variety of philanthropic enter
prises. Her father, for thirty years the pastor of the First Pres
byterian Church in Detroit, was noted as a preacher, a man
of deep and varied learning, and a liberal contributor to
the religious literature of his day. He was especially
interested in the educational development of his adopted
State, above all in the Michigan University, of whose Board
of Regents he was for many years an active and useful
member. His daughter Isabella was born in Carlisle, Cumberland
County, Pennsylvania, February 11, 1830. She was a
woman of marked individuality of character, and many of
her moral and mental traits may be traced to her ancestry
upon both sides, which for generations included many
names of high standing in church and state. The Duffields
were originally of Huguenot origin, which is equivalent to
saying that its members were earnest in the cause of civil

12 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
and religious liberty. Her paternal grandfather was chap
lain to the first American Congress, and because of his
staunch loyalty to the Union cause, was known as " the
fighting parson."
Upon her mother's .side she was the granddaughter of
Divie Bethune, a leading merchant in the city of New York
in the early part of this century. His intellectual ability,
skill and energy, gave him a prominent place among the
business men of his time, and though he died in the prime
of life, he left a handsome estate to his family. Mrs.
Stewart's great-grandmother was the Isabella Graham so
well known for her benevolent and charitable work, and
elevated religious character, who is enshrined in the mem
ory of many now living as a type of that rare union of
faith and works which designates the true follower of
Christ, and is especially remembered as the founder of
the first orphan asylum in the United States. In the phil
anthropy of Isabella Graham, in the ardor and energy of
" the fighting parson," in the religious zeal and mental
ability of her father, we can easily trace the same qualities
which were so noticeably prominent in the life of Mrs.
Stewart. She was aceustomed to speak of her pious ances
try as her "glorious heritage," and her life made it evident
that other things besides money are transmitted to a
child, that the mysterious and infinitely more important
inheritance called character, those tendencies for good or
evil which influence future generations long after we are
forgotten, are even more surely transmitted.
In the winter of 1838-9, when nine years of age, Mrs.
Stewart came to Detroit, and this city was her home ever
after. She was married on April 6, 1852, to Dr. Morse
Stewart, and became the mother of six children, five of
whom survive her. Although her married life was one of

BIOGRAPHY. 13
great happiness, she was not exempt from the many cares
and duties inseparable from the management of a large
household, and the education of a family. She was an
unusually devoted wife and mother, alnd in the sick room
was a skillful, tender and unwearied nurse. Her charity
truly " began at home," and all other work was set aside if
husband or children needed her services. Her heart, how
ever, was too large to be wholly confined to the domestic
circle, or absorbed by the duties which with many women
serve as an excuse for limited activity. She longed to com
fort and help the sorrowful and unhappy outside of the
sheltered and fortunate home Providence had given her.
Her work in connection with the public charities of
Detroit began in 1860, with the organization of the Home
of the Friendless. She was the first to propose the organ
ization of this institution, always held a prominent place
upon its Board, and for many years served as its president,
and held that office at the time of her decease. In con
nection with this institution she established and for many
years edited the " Home Messenger," and it subsequently
became the organ of several of the Protestant charities of
the city. It may be proper to mention in this connection
" The Home Messenger Receipt Book," whieh was sug
gested and compiled by her, and has passed through three
editions, each one of which was completed at an expendi
ture of no little time and painstaking, and all but a few of
the last sold, the profits from the sales accruing to the ben
efit of the Home of the Friendless institution. The idea
of an "Old Ladies' Home" was also first conceived by
her, and carried out through the liberality of Mrs. Mary
Thompson, who fully and completely equipped and endowed
the commodious establishment known as " The Thompson
Home for Old Ladies."

14 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
As is indicated elsewhere, the organization of the Detroit
Association of Charities was also due to Mrs. Stewart's
untiring labor. In 1875-6, while in Europe, she became
interested in a similar system then existing in the city of
London, and procured papers and descriptions of its meth
ods of work, and upon her return home devised a plan for
adapting it to Detroit. She then communicated with the
mayor, asking him to call a meeting of citizens to consider
the subject. The mayor responded promptly, a meeting
was called at his office, and as a result the Association of
Charities was organized, and has been in continued exist
ence and working order since that time.
The last of Mrs. Stewart's many good works, and one
which enlisted her warmest sympathies, was the- estab
lishing of the Woman's Christian Association. Her for
mer work had been more for those who had become help
less and dependent, but it had been the desire of her life to
see young women so trained to self-support and self-reliance
that if reverses came they might be able to provide for
themselves, and maintain the self-respect which comes from
honest and independent labor ; and as all good training must
have a genuine religious basis, she wished the institution to
partake of the nature of a Christian school and home. In
order to meet these demands the Woman's Christian Asso-
sociation was originated. Womanly sympathy, however,
has enlarged the sphere of its benevolence, and the work
has not been wholly confined to women ; in several instances
helpless boys and men, for whom no other refuge seemed
open, have been aided and cared for. It was the ardent
desire of Mrs. Stewart to see this organization established
in a home of its own. The last effort in which she was
engaged was for the accomplishment of this end, and in
reply to an inquiry in regard to her hopes and expectations,

BIOGRAPHY. 15
she said : " I have done what I could ; my plans and methods
may not prevail, but I have no concern about ultimate suc
cess ; it is Christ's work, and He will take care of it." Her
associate members on the Board were greatly affected by the
death of their President, but feel as she did, that the work
is " Christ's work," and that they are called upon to redouble
their energy now that their strong adviser is taken away.*
In reviewing the long list of Mrs. Stewart's benevolent
works, it may also be stated that Detroit owes Harper Hos
pital to a suggestion made by her. The facts are that when
Mr. Harper decided to make his will, he sent for his old
friend and pastor, Dr4 Duffield, and told him that his design
was to leave his large property to the First Presbyterian
Church of Detroit. Dr. Duffield advised differently, but said
if he wished to give his property for religious and charitable
purposes, making the church his almoner, he would take the
matter under consideration and advise with him further.
Mr. Harper then gave him to understand that it was his
intention to convey his property through him, as he had
implicit confidence in his integrity. Subsequently Dr. Duf
field brought up the subject in his own home, remarking
that the church had no need of such a property, and that he
was somewhat puzzled as to how to advise Mr. Harper. His
daughter, who was present, then said : " Father, Dr. Stewart
says the charity Detroit specially needs is a Protestant hos
pital." " That's true," was the reply, and as the result of
this conversation Mr. Harper's gift was directed to the
founding of the hospital which bears his name. Nancy
Martin's contribution to the same object was also made out
of her regard for, and confidence in, Dr. Duffield. Mrs.
Stewart, who knew her well, had frequent conversations
* The following entry is found on a fly-leaf of her Bible : " Marching orders for
the Woman's Christian Association received September 15, 1885, at 5 o'clock a. m.
Go forward ! Slack not ! ' '

16 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
with her as to the disposal of her property in the line of
the same charity upon which Mr. Harper had decided ; and
it may be proper to state that she always regretted that the
contribution of the woman had not received the same rec
ognition as that of the man. She felt that a maternity
department in connection with the hospital should have
commemorated the name of Mrs. Martin.
Among other works carried out by the wonderful energy
and executive ability of Mrs. Stewart, was one of a patriotic
character. During the dark days of our civil war, she
opened a correspondence throughout the State, soliciting
supplies for the soldiers, and tendering the use of her own
residence as a place to receive, arrange, and ship them.
Her suggestions brought a quick and generous response, and
for weeks she worked almost single-handed, shipping sup
plies by rail and express to various points where Michigan
soldiers were stationed, and when the work so enlarged as
to require more help, she turned it over to an organization
composed of representative ladies in the city and State.
In its early days, Mrs. Stewart was an active member of
the "Woman's Christian Temperance Union."
It was while engaged in this work that she became
impressed with the condition of a large class of young girls
in our city who, for want of proper home training and
restraint, were allowed to walk the streets, and were thus
brought in contact with vicious people of both sexes, often
to their ruin. To meet the wants of this class, she devised
the project of a State institution for the religious and moral
training of young girls found entering upon a vicious life.
Time and thought were, ungrudgingly given towards per
fecting, and carrying into execution a plan for accomplish
ing this purpose. To this end she spent several days at
Lansing, in the spring of 1879, during a session of the

BIOGRAPHY. 17
Legislature of which our present U. S. Senator, Hon. T.
W. Palmer, was a member, and his active sympathy and
co-operation greatly facilitated her efforts, which resulted
in the present Reformatory for Girls, located in Adrian,
the bill for which was formulated by herself.
A little mission called the " Bethel," was for a long time
with her a favorite place for Christian work. In it she met
a class who gathered once or twice a week for bible read
ings, and no meetings were so well attended as those when
she presided. She was a favorite teacher, always had a
clear apprehension of her subject, and a happy and lucid
manner of presenting her thoughts.
She was also active in two local organizations for char
itable and religious work — the Detroit branch of the
"McAll Mission" in Paris, France, and the "Woman's
Indian Association." Of the latter she was vice-president
up to the time of her death.
Interested in all objects for the elevation of society, Mrs.
Stewart took a prominent part in organizing the Art Loan
Exhibition of 1883, whose complete success paved the way
for the present beautiful Museum of Art, of which Detroit
is justly proud. Those who worked with her for this
object, will remember days of discouragement, when but
for her energy the work might have been abandoned.
From long observation in the Home of the Friendless
work, she had come to feel deeply the need of some means
of correcting a crying evil in the ill usage of children, and
the adoption of stringent measures for protection against
unnatural parents and inhuman guardians. Within the last
year of her life she had been in correspondence with organ
izations in other States, having for their object this purpose,
and had gathered material in the form of papers, pamphlets,
etc., descriptive of their methods of work, with a view, it

18 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
is believed, of establishing similar efforts in Detroit. But
this must remain among the unfinished things which her
ever active mind was continually devising for the relief of
suffering humanity.
Among Mrs. Stewart's miscellaneous writings, a paper
will be found, published some years ago, which shows how
for a long time this subject had occupied her mind.
When, in 1862, she first established her summer home
in Grosse Pointe, on the shore of the beautiful Lake St.
Clair, she found there a considerable Protestant commu
nity, with no church or Sunday school in the neighborhood.
Having secured the co-operation of the city residents, she
promptly set herself to the task of organizing a Sunday
school in the township school house. Not content with
this, she invited the pastors of city churches to go there
and preach on Sunday afternoons, the results of which were
so promising that she found it a comparatively easy thing to
secure money sufficient for the erection of a house of wor
ship. It was then what was known as an omnibus church ;
clergymen from the different pulpits of the city conducted
the simple service of this truly primitive church. Now it
is well organized and thriving, with a clergyman of its own,
over forty communicants, and a large attendance both win
ter and summer.
This brief outline of a life work filled with a noble
benevolence, gives but a faint idea of her striking char
acter. She possessed a fine personal presence, and a digni
fied bearing, a brilliant mind, strongly tending to intel
lectual pursuits, with social gifts, and a charm of manner
which made her remarkable in any circle. She willingly
put aside all personal indulgence, gave up study in which
she delighted, and society of which she was an ornament,
to work for others. It mattered not who they were, the

BIOGRAPHY. 19
soldier, the orphan, the old, the young, helpless childhood
or more helpless age, the honest and self-respecting poor, or
the fallen and degraded, all alike came under her ministry.
As none were beneath the compassion of her Divine Master,
so none were beyond the pale of her sympathy and aid.
The inspiration to such a life must always be love to God,
which finds its expression in love to man ; but to accom
plish her work other qualities were necessary, and these she
possessed in abundance. She had a clear mind, great power
of organization, a serene cheerfulness which never faltered,
and the facile and ready use of her pen. These were
among the gifts which enabled her to do so much, but
greater than all was the unwavering faith that Divine
assistance would certainly be given to all earnest Christian
endeavors. All her work seemed cumulative in character; it was
continually being amplified and rounded out into greater
usefulness and perfection. , But in the midst of it all,
her beautiful life came to a close, and rarely has such a
bereavement fallen upon the city as came npon Detroit, on
the morning of May 27, 1888, when the announcement
was made of her sudden decease. Stricken down in the
prime of a noble life of active benevolence, the cause of
Christian philanthropy lost in her one of its most able sup
porters. It is, however, a useful lesson to other lives to
learn how much good can be accomplished, how many
charitable enterprises established, by the enthusiasm and
devotion of one large-hearted and high-minded woman.
The benefit of such a life is not ended in the grave,
for the remembrance of her untiring labor for the destitute
and the unfortunate must stimulate others to follow in the
same path.

Hfuttjeral ^ddrsss.

REV. A. H. KELLOGG, D. D.
There are many things that come to mind to say as we
stand here to-day, but there is not time to say them all as
we would like.
Mrs. Stewart was so well-known in this community, and
so thoroughly understood, that it would be a work of super
erogation indeed to attempt a portraiture ; but there are
certain traits that I desire to emphasize.
(1) Were she able to speak, I'm sure she would herself
emphasize the fact that she came of a pious ancestry. In
this land of ours we entertain no such foolish notions
respecting nobility, I am glad to say, as they cherish
across the sea. We do not refer now to mere heredity.
But there is a magnificent and glorious heritage coming out
of the past, when that past has been in the line of God's
covenant. God has a covenant people on the earth still.
The promise that embraces " thousands" of generations of
them that love Him is surely a thing of priceless value.
This is sometimes misunderstood, and men, misunderstand
ing, presume upon it. It is said of Aaron Burr, scapegrace
though he was, that he believed in his ultimate salvation,
simply because he was a covenant-child. But grace does
not run in the blood in any such sense. A covenant is based
on an explicit understanding, and in the 89th psalin we
are taught that the "everlasting" covenant God made
with David, did not propose to overlook any violation of its
provisions on the part of His children. While, therefore,
there is scarcely anything so precious as such an heritage,

FUNERAL ADDRESS. 21
«
there is no folly so great as to presume upon it, just as
there is no sin so great as contempt for it or the bartering
of it away. When a covenant-child opens its heart to
the Divine overtures, then is learned the wealth of bless
ing secured by it. It was in this that Mrs. Stewart
rejoiced. It might well inspire her with that self-respect
and honest pride that distinguished her, when she remem
bered how father and grandfather, and great-grandfather
had been loyal and faithful sons of God — servants of
God upon whom a covenant God had bestowed abundant
honor. (2) " The grace of God bestowed upon her was not in
vain." I hold in my hands her bible. It is a sort of reflex
of her character. There is scarcely a page of it that she has
not by markings, dates, comments, connected with her
daily life and inner experiences. She has herself in this
way marked the passage (Acts 26:19) where St. Paul, tell
ing to King Agrippa the story of his conversion and of the
Divine call that came to him on the way to Damascus,
avows, " whereupon, Oh, King Agrippa, / was not dis
obedient unto the heavenly vision." Mrs. Stewart very
early discovered her mission in like manner, we may say,
indeed, inherited it, at least found an inspiration for it in
the example of the noble woman, her great-grandmother
whose name she bore. I am told that wherever she went
even in those last days at the " Oakland," the well-thumbed
memoir of Isabella Graham was taken along. Yonder cor
ridor is adorned with a portrait of that noble woman, who
was such a worker for the Master in those early days. And
we can well believe, that as she went out and came into this
home of hers, the sight of the portrait, and the traditions
that clustered around it, often nerved herself for some
arduous toil.

22 MRS. MORSE STEWART. *
Is there any society for distinctively Christian work, or
any association in this city for the improvement of the con
dition of the deserving poor, or for the relief of the unfor
tunate, or for the protection of the weak and the defense
less, that ever appealed to her in vain ?
Nay, of how many societies in Detroit had she the direc
tion and the shaping ?
Did ever woman devote herself and her influence more
unreservedly, more unselfishly, more untiringly, to the
betterment of society ?
The presence here to-day of representatives of almost
every charitable society in this charitable city, will attest her
all-embracing charity. And methinks there are many more
who would like to be here, who have been the recipients of
her bounty, who, were they here, would be sure to repeat
the story told in the Acts (9:39), of Dorcas, " that woman
who was full of good works and alms deeds, which she did,"
who sickened and died, and who, when Peter came to bury
her, was surrounded by the " widows weeping and showing
the coats and garments which Dorcas made while she was
with them." Yes ! our beloved sister caught the spirit of
the Master, and understood what he meant by His call to
her, " Follow me." She was not " disobedient unto the
heavenly vision." " The grace of God bestowed upon her
was not in vain."
(3) We must not forget in this connection to emphasize
the fact, that Mrs. Stewart was a founder and an originator
in the field of Christian work. She was not content merely
to follow in the beaten tracks of charity. She was fertile in
devising new forms of work. She was the founder, in
Detroit at least, of several societies that have already
developed into important institutions — notably, the " Home
of the Friendless," of which for twenty-five years she was

FUNERAL ADDRESS. 23
4
the honored president. She was also the main inspira
tion' in such institutions as the " Thompson Home," the
"Woman's Christian Association," and in such movements
as work among working girls.
It is surely something in this busy age, and at a period
when the activities of the church seem to have occupied
every department of Christian labor, to have had the fore
sight, and the courage, and the perseverance, requisite to
introduce something new. She was ever "devising liberal
things," occupying every open door, following providential
indications, and stimulating others to do likewise.
Surely it must have been a source of gratitude, as of joy
unutterable in reviewing life,, as St. Paul felt, to perceive
that she had " not lived in vain," that her " profiting had
appeared to all," that she had infused into many an associa
tion something of her own spirit and energy, that she had
laid the foundation of many noble charities, that " the grace
of God bestowed upon her had not been in vain."
As we again open her much-marked bible and turn to its
last page, we find she has written there, as though she
desired it to be her own" commentary on a life busy and
abundant in labors, "Yet not I, but the grace of God."
(4) We must not forget, moreover, in this review of
Mrs. Stewart's life-story, to emphasize the Christian char
acter she maintained in social life. She was no recluse.
Providence had endowed her with more than ordinary intel
lectual and social gifts. He had given her a social position
in the community which none more clearly recognized than
herself. And she accepted all, with a sense of her oppor
tunities and her grave responsibilities.
She was readily and universally, as I understand, accorded
the place of a leader in Detroit society. She brought, to

24 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
her position a marked individuality. All felt instinctively
the strength of her character and the influence of that per
sonality into which she early developed.
How did she fulfill, we may inquire, those important
functions that attach to a lady of position and culture and
influence ?
We all know what an instinctive hatred of " shams " she
manifested, as also of the hollow, meaningless ceremonials,
and of the insincerities in friendships, that mark a mere
wordly society.
It was with such feelings that she set herself the task,
with that force of character and untiring energy that was
undaunted by difficulties, to elevate the tone of society in
which she was a leader, to counteract its selfishness, to
permeate it with something like principle, to mould it to
usefulness. And I presume there is no one here but will
acknowledge the purity of her purpose, and that her Chris
tian character was in no other direction shown so conspicu
ously as in the way in which she endeavored to mould the
circle of society in which she found herself by birth and
education. She could glory in an honorable ancestry ; she came of a
covenanted stock ; she was endowed with marked mental
gifts and aptitudes for social life ; she moved in the inner
circle of society. She might have been content with all this
— might have settled down to a life of ignoble ease and mere
self-gratification — proud with a foolish pride of family and
position. But, no! She heard the Divine call, she was
obedient to the heavenly vision, she acknowledged the
Master's right to her gifts and influence, she was ever ready
to confess her faith in Jesus among rich and poor.
Like her Master, she " went about doing good," and what

FUNERAL ADDRESS. 25
she did, she did with heartiness and with an energy that
was infectious. To the last she spared not her strength, and
died with many noble schemes yet unfinished.
Ah ! who among you here to-day that can command time
and means will take up these unfinished plans and bring
them to perfection ?
She died, as I can believe she would have chosen to die,
in the midst of her labors. It is not given to any of us to
choose the time nor yet the manner of our departure, but
who is there here that can fail to see how peculiarly gra
cious God was to this child of His, in this very respect. She
was summoned, not when her day of usefulness was a thing
of the past and long since forgotten, but in the midst of it,
when companions in labor will sadly miss her, when the
character of the work she was doing stands out in clearest
outline, and when others will be aroused to take up her
work and finish it. Rest assured God knows when to call
to Himself His children and faithful servants. Such is the
view heaven takes of life and death. " I heard a voice
from heaven saying unto me, write, blessed are the dead
which die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the
Spirit, that they may rest from their labors ; and their
works do follow them." ,
To us who merely look at such a departure from our
earthly standpoint, the removal of so useful a Christian
seems deplorable. To the church it is a bereavement. To
sister Christian workers it is the loss of a sympathetic nature,
full of experience, wise in counsel, so capable, so energetic,
so helpful.
It does seem a robbing of earth to enrich heaven. But
up yonder, where all things are looked at in their general
bearing on the gracious purpose of God, there is the lan
guage of gratulation only, "blessed." It is not only an

26 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
angel's way of looking at it. It is the dictum of the ever
blessed Spirit, "yea, saith the Spirit."
They " rest from their labors and their works do follow
them." That is the ground of the Spirit's judgment. The
influence started by the saint gathered to rest still abides
and develops in the church and in society. ' ' Their works
do follow them."
Moreover, there is such a thing as being " baptized for
the dead " (1 Cor. 15 : 29). The mantle of an Elijah falls
on an Elisha. A Christian mother leaves to her sons and
daughters, not only an honorable name and a love that is
imperishable, but a new motive for life and an inspiration
to consecration to the same or similar ministries.
What a different view, then, from ours does heaven take
of the death of a saint. To the view of men, " one event
happeneth to all," for the righteous die equally with the
wicked, but in very truth, how wide the difference ! God
is near his child, supporting, noticing all, using invisible
ministries, and these carry her away singing the harvest-
home. The Redeemer is " glorified in them." Even their
dust is precious in his eyes, for some day by his mighty
power it is to be recalled to an immortal life, with a beauty
and a glory all its own.
Weep not, then, for the departed one. She has entered
into rest. The battle has been fought, the victory won.
Her influence here will widen yet more and more with
abundant benediction.
Follow her faith. Imitate her intimate acquaintance with
the word of God. Gather from her example, a Divine call
to thyself, oh, woman, whosoever thou art, to do what thy
hands find to do with thy might.
God grant that even her death may prove to some here a
veritable resurrection unto life.

gftjesoltitxows.

WESTERN SEAMAN'S FRIEND SOCIETY.
At a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Western
Seamen's Friend Society, Detroit Branch, held at the Bethel
building June 4, 1888, it was unanimously
Resolved, 1. That this Board deeply laments the death of
Mrs. Isabella G. D. Stewart, an honorary member of this
body, and offers most heartfelt sympathy to the husband
and family, the friends, community, church, and philan
thropic societies that have been thus bereaved.
2. That her active interest and participation in the affairs
of the Bethel, from the date of its foundation ; her wise
and practical suggestions for its management-; her pecuni
ary and other contributions to its prosperity and success ;
her remarkably able, energetic, and devoted conduct of its
religious meetings from time to time ; and the inspiration
given to the Board by her occasional presence and counsel,
entitle her memory to be held in most grateful remem
brance by this society.
3. That in the judgment of the Board, a public memorial
meeting should be held at an early convenient date, at which
may be represented all the local charities and religious
bodies with which her activities were associated ; and that
the Execntive Committee of the Board, of which she was
also a member, is hereby authorized and instructed to take
such steps to that end as they may deem advisable.
4. That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to the
family of our deceased sister and co-worker.
(A true copy.) HENRY A. FORD,
Detroit, June 5, 1888. Secretary.

28 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
%u fSj&zmaxixm.
At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Woman's
Christian Association, the following resolutions were unan
imously adopted :
Whereas, It has seemed best to our Heavenly Father to
remove from earth in the prime of life our much loved
friend and President, Mrs. Isabella G. D. Stewart, we deem
it not only fit but desirable on our part to pay a tribute of
respect to her memory ; therefore
Resolved, That with no common formal sorrow we pub-
¦ lish to each other and this community the expression of
our high regard and love for our departed friend and fellow-
worker, our attachment to her as a friend, our admiration of
her as a Christian worker.
Resolved, That we do most heartily bear record to the
uniform courtesy that characterized all her intercourse with
us, and her interest in the prosperity of this association.
Resolved, That the character of Mrs. Stewart for unswerv
ing integrity and earnestness, challenges our admiration, and
will remain a monument to her memory more enduring
than marble.
Resolved, That while we sincerely sympathize with the
whole community in the loss of one so dear to many of .
them, more kindly and tenderly still, would we join with
the afflicted family in mourning her loss, and we would
herewith tender them our sympathy and condolence in this
their great affliction.
Resolved, That these resolutions be placed upon the
records of this association and that they be published in the
journals of this city, and a copy of the same be sent to the
family. THE COMMITTEE.

RESOLUTIONS. 29

THOMPSON HOME FOR OLD LADIES.
Whereas, Mrs. Isabella Graham Duffield Stewart, after a
brief illness, passed to her heavenly rest, on Sabbath, May
27, 1888, therefore we, the Managers of the Thompson
Home for Old Ladies, in which she was from the first
deeply interested, do
Resolve, That in the removal of Mrs. Stewart from the
scene of her earthly labors, not this Home only, but the
whole charitable work of the city and the entire community
suffer a great and grievous loss.
Of a stately and commanding presence, dignified, refined
and cultivated, possessing a strongly marked individuality,
no ordinary executive ability, untiring energy, tenacity of
purpose and zeal in a good cause which no combination
of adverse circumstances could daunt or discourage, she
devoted her rare and remarkable abilities to the service of
God, in the constant endeavor to relieve human suffering,
and ameliorate the condition of the needy.
The poor, the weak, the defenseless, the orphan, the for
saken and the outcast found in her a friend, whose heart
was rich in sympathy, whose head was fertile in device, and
whose hand was swift and sure in carrying her measures of
.help and healing, into execution.
Her life, though ended all too soon, was crowded and
crowned with works of faith and labors of love.
Whilst we know that we shall surely miss the inspiration
of her wise counsel and dauntless courage, we bow our
heads, assured that He who forgets not even the cup of cold
water, given in His name, hath welcomed her as a " good
and faithful servant " into the joy of her Lord.

30 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolutions be sent to Dr.
Stewart and the family of our deceased sister, as an expres
sion of our deep sympathy with them in the loss they have
sustained. MARY THOMPSON,
Mrs. D. W. Brooks, President.
Secretary pro tern.

WOMAN'S INDIAN ASSOCIATION.
Dr. Morse Stewart and Family :
It is with deep sorrow that the " Woman's Indian Associ
ation " records the death of its honored and beloved Vice-
President, Mrs. I. G. D. Stewart, and desires to place on
record the following :
Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God to remove sud
denly from this mortal life, our wise and zealous associate,
Mrs. Stewart,
Resolved, That we bow with submission to the will of an
All- wise Providence, and tender to her bereaved family our
sympathy in their irreparable loss. Her uncommon abilities,
consecreted to the betterment of this community, morally,
socially and intellectually, her Christian faith constantly
exemplified in her life, her inspiring presence, will afford
an example worthy of emulation to the women of Detroit.
Her death, to our Association a loss — to herself an endless
gain. Respectfully, with sincerest sympathy. MRS. E. B. COOLIDGE,
Mas. Albert Miller, President.
Corresponding Secretary.
Detroit, June 1st, 1888.

RESOLUTIONS. 31

HOME OF THE FRIENDLESS.

At the regular monthly meeting of the Board of the
"Home of the Friendless" held June 5th, 1888, the
enclosed resolutions were adopted.
Whereas, Our Heavenly Father in His infinite wisdom,
has removed our much beloved President, Mrs. Morse Stew
art, from her active usefulness as a member of this Board,
and has left vacant a chair which the deceased has worthily
filled for a period of twenty-five years, and
Whereas, By such removal our hearts are filled with sor
row and grief ; and while we bow submissive to His will we
would give some suitable expression to our sadness, and pay
fitting tribute to the memory of one possessing so many
qualities of head and heart, which have ever commanded
our respect and admiration ; therefore,
Resolved, That in the sudden decease of our friend and
co-worker, this institution has lost one of its earliest and
most earnest advocates, one of its most zealous, wise and
effective workers. That in the meeting of her duties and
responsibilities here and elsewhere, no labor seemed to
weary her, no threatened danger caused her to falter, and no
case so desperate could arise that was not overcome by
her rare gifts of intellect, her fertility in expedients, her
invariable courtesy, all subordinate as they were to an
earnest love for humanity and an abiding faith in the good
ness of God.
Resolved, That this Board tender its words of condolence
to our sister Boards of this city ; for there are no organized
efforts for the care of the aged and infirm, for the refor
mation of the profligate and vicious, for the guiding of the
fallen and abandoned, for the care and training of innocent

32 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
children, where her head, hand and heart were not at the
front ; so that all may say of her, " She hath done what she
could." Resolved, That we would hereby extend to the family of
the deceased, our heartfelt sympathy in this, their great
bereavement ; for a most devoted and faithful wife, a gifted
and affectionate sister, a kind, indulgent and loving mother,
has been taken away ; but the memory of her is an inherit
ance which will be cherished while life shall last.
Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the
records of this Board, and a copy thereof be sent to the
family of the deceased. MRS. W. C. DUNCAN,
Becording Secretary.

PRESS NOTICES.
[From the Detroit Free Press, May 28, 1888.]
Mrs. Isabella G. D. Stewart, the only daughter in a family
which has always been prominent in Detroit, and herself
distinguished by a life devoted to high purposes in the
interest of the public good, died after a brief illness yes
terday morning at the Oakland house, St. Clair. The
announcement of her sudden death will prove a startling
blow not only to the inner circle of those who came into
close relationship with the personality around which were
thrown the charms of brilliant natural gifts, broadened by a
great work in humanity's behalf, but hundreds of Detroit
households where her character and example have been
a potent influence, and where her memory will long be
cherished. A record of Mrs. Stewart's charitable and philanthropic
work would form a history of almost every enterprise in

PRESS NOTICES. 33
the city by which results in these directions have been
sought. Gifted with the intellectuality that distinguishes the
other members of the family, and a forcible writer, Mrs.
Stewart was an effective advocate for the many humanita
rian enterprises for which she labored. She worked disin
terestedly and from a love for the cause, but there is
perhaps no lady in the West who is entitled to greater
recognition for the good works which, though under diffi
culties, she has accomplished. [From the Detroit Tribune.]
Mrs. Stewart was a woman who had a marked individ
uality, and who united in herself the brilliancy and pecul
iarities of two distinguished lines of ancestry. She was
the daughter of the Rev. George Duffield, long the pastor
of the First Presbyterian Church of Detroit, and he was
one of the most profound and learned of a race of noted
divines, patriots and soldiers. Her maternal great-grand
mother, Mrs. Isabella Graham, for whom she was named,
was one of the most notable women of her day, and her
grandmother, Mrs. Bethune, was also a woman of mark,
being one of the founders, and, with Mrs. Alexander
Hamilton, one of the first directors of the first orphan
asylum ever organized in New York, and also the mother
of Rev: George W. Bethune, who was one of the most
distinguished of American clergymen.
Mrs. Stewart was born at Carlisle, Pa., February 11th,
1830, was brought to Detroit by her parents in 1838, and
has resided here ever since. She has always occupied
a prominent position, and undoubtedly was more widely
known than any other lady in Detroit. Her patriotism

34 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
was with her a religion, and at the breaking out of the war
she identitied herself with every effort to encourage and
aid the Union soldiers. She and her noble mother were
the first in Detroit to obtain and forward hospital supplies,
and she was the founder and first President of the Ladies'
Soldiers Aid Society, which was formed November 6, 1861,
and was the first organization of the kind in the country.
Her influence was felt in almost every effort made to
assist the weak, the poor and the oppressed. In social mat
ters Mrs. Stewart was a leader, and her culture and wonder
ful natural ability made her prominent in literary and art
circles. She was a member of the Executive Committee
of the great Art Loan of 1883, and one of the original sub
scribers to and directors of the Detroit Museum of Art, the
building for which is now nearly completed. As would nat
urally be inferred from the foregoing sketch, Mrs. Stewart
was a woman of great decision of character and of strong
contrasts. Deeply religious, she was entirely free from
cant or superstition ; positive in everything, she was always
ready to listen to an argument and to confess herself wrong
if shown to be so ; so determined as to be almost audacious,
she was devoid of undue aggressiveness ; stern and uncom
promising in her condemnation of what was wrong, she had
that charity for the erring which pardoned a multitude of
sins. She was universally respected, and was beloved by
all who knew her well, and her loss will be lamented not
only by her relatives and friends, but by the sick and needy,
to whom she was a comforter and gracious almoner.

[From the Carlisle Daily Herald, Carlisle, Pa., Mrs. Stewart's native city.]
When the family removed to Detroit, the daughter was
only nine years old, and was a resident of that city for

PRESS NOTICES. 35
nearly fifty years, where she became eminently distin
guished by a life consecrated to high purposes in the inter
est of humanity and the public well-being. It has been
honorably said of her, that a record of her charitable and
philanthropic work would form a history of almost every
enterprise in that city by which results in these directions
have been sought. A devoted Christian woman, who
worked disinterestedly and from a love of the cause, and
widespread and lasting has been her influence for good.
Her taste or talent for such work may have been largely
occasioned by her illustrious great-grandm6ther, after whom
she was named, and who founded in New York the first
orphan asylum established there, and whose admirable life
and writings have, through so many years, greatly contrib
uted to encourage and sustain faith and love and devotion
in Christian well-living and well-doing.

getters of (§on&olzntz.

FROM HER BROTHER, REV. GEORGE DUFFIELD, D. D.
[Since deceased.]Bloomfield, N. J., May 30, 1888.
My Deak Bkothek — Of all the shocks which I have
thus far experienced in the way of bereavement, the death
of Belle has been the most sudden, and that which I have
been the least able to bear. I can only say, God help and
pity you if it has been equally a surprise to yourself.* 'I
know how much you loved her as a wife, and, in general,
what you said of her to father at the golden wedding. I
know how much she thought of you as a beloved husband,
and in no place have I heard her speak more affectionately
of you than in the "Oakland" two years since. "I think
I could make up my mind to any sorrow easier than to go
before my husband." And now what she feared has come
upon her. It seems, somehow, as if it would relieve both
me and you to let you know how dreadfully sudden it was,
even if I do so by the hand of an amanuensis, as I am
utterly unable to use my own for this purpose. Only last
week I received a letter from the "Oakland," in which
my sister wrote :
"This heading tells its own story of where I am and what I am
doing. . The old scenes of our stay here two years ago come back and
are soon set aside by all the sequences of that moment of rest we had
together. I no longer dare look back. The past seven months have

LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE. 37
tried bone and muscle to the quick — but they have had their happiness
— ' the Lord stood with me.'
" It is a great thing to know that each day brings us near that perfect
abiding in Him that we can only know in part here, but in the ' most
fair city ' we ' rest in the long release ' from sin and sorrow.
"I have felt the loss of my dear S. W. D. each month more and
more ; it was he alone that linked me to the generation to whom I am
fast becoming an aged woman.
" This winter I have read with infinite comfort, and, I trust, benefit,
three little books by the Rev. Andrew Murray, of Wellington, Cape of
Good Hope, entitled 'Abide in Christ,' ' Like Christ,' and 'With Christ
in the School of Prayer.' His opening of the word is simple, strong
and clear — it is advanced — and yet he eschews mysticism, sentiment,
feeling, and brings you down to a few intensely practical foundation
principles of ' faith and practice ' — do you remember how father always
used those two words together — they go together.
"What are your plans? I have none at present, and am enjoyiDg
to-day with a keen sense of its perfection. Belle and her two children,
and even Dr. Stewart, are up here for a few days. Write and tell me
what you would like to do. I have not a wish beyond to-day except
that I may serve God according to his will, which is like the salt to the
bread, and goes without saying."
I said I am not able to write ; much less am I able to go
where my heart would prompt, and be with you in the hour
of your sorrow. My trouble is weakness of heart, want of
breath, and general giving way of the nervous system. At
quarter past three this morning I registered in my little
diary, " My strength is failing, and I have not the third of
my respiration." I had almost said my soul is weary of
life for decreasing breath, but in the "most fair city,"
where "we rest in the long release," it is not so. May we
all meet there, father, mother and children, and children's
children, and our joy be the joy of our Lord.
O what a change does one death make in a family to one
and all. I felt almost certain that I would have been the
first of the children to go, but the very last has been taken

38 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
that I expected. Poor Robbie ! Remember Hattie and
me to him. Remember us to all, and especially to yourself,
my own dear and much afflicted brother. GEORGE DUFFIELD.

FROM REV. GEO. D. BAKER, D. D., A FORMER PASTOR.
Philadelphia, June 2, 1888.
Mt Dear De. Stewaet — You must permit me to min
gle my sincere sympathy with the tide that has gone out to
you from many hearts in this time of your great sorrow.
Please say to your children, one and all, that my thought
and my prayer have been much with them in this new and
saddest experience of their lives., But God spared her to
you and to them until she had wrought within you all a
work which is as indestructible as it is beautiful. May
God comfort you. Sincerely your friend, GEORGE D. BAKER.

FROM RT. REV. W. E. McLAREN, D. D., BISHOP OF ILLINOIS.
Chicago, May 31, 1888.
Mt Deae De. Stewart — We are deeply pained to hear
of the sad event which has fallen so suddenly upon your
home. Our hearts go out in sympathy towards you. She
was such a queenly woman, so strong, and yet so gentle ;
so gifted, so loving and beloved — one cannot think of her
death as other than an irreparable loss to everyone but to
herself. I have always regarded her as one of the noblest
women it has been my privilege to know. May God help
you and all to bear the burden which He has placed upon
you. With tenderest sympathy,
Sincerely yours,
W. E. McLAREN.

LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE. 39
FROM A FORMER PASTOR.
Yonkerb, N. Y., August 13, 1888.
My Deae De. Stewaet — On my arrival from Europe a
few days ago I was shocked to hear for the first time of the
death of your wife. I was the more startled because at the
time of my leaving Detroit, if there was any woman who,
under all ordinary contingencies, had the assurance of a long
life, I supposed it was she. But oh, as we go on through
life, how are we made to realize more and more that truly we
" know not the day nor the hour." I remember the last
time I sat at your table, and we were talking together in
regard to death. Dr. George Duffield quoted a clause from
a sermon which he had heard from Dr. Kellogg, in which
the latter said there was no death to be apprehended by the
Christian, since he had died already, and I remember how
Mrs. Stewart seemed to rejoice in the sentiment ; and cer
tainly we can rest in the assurance that death was not death
for her ; that it was simply the portal through which she
passed to join that blessed company among which we shall
all be numbered soon. * * * That God may
richly bless and comfort you all, giving to you light in
darkness, is the prayer of
Your sincere friend, W. A. BARR.

Detroit, September 18, 1888.
Hon. D. Bethune Duffield :
Deae Sie — Upon my return from my European trip, I
found your letter inviting me to assist in the funeral ser
vices of your dear and lamented sister. The letter came
from the Dead Letter office, and so never reached me.
* * * It is very pleasant to know that I was remem-

40 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
bered on this occasion. She never knew how the manifes
tation of her sympathy touched me on the occasion of my
son's death. I never expect to see her place filled in this
community. She was a power. * " * And so, one by
one, we are rapidly passing into our rest — our blessed rest.
As ever, yours, D. M. COOPER.

A LIFE-LONG FRIEND FROM CHILDHOOD UP.
Eaux Bonnes, Basse Pyrinees, June 18, 1888.
Deae De. Stewaet — The very sad intelligence of dear
Belle's sudden death, which has reached me here, has so
shocked me that I cannot refrain from sharing the regret
which must be so keenly felt by you and her children.
Dear, dear Belle, the companion of my girlhood, the sincere,
staunch friend of after years — none can replace you in the
heart of her who has so loved you. I had looked forward
to many pleasant hours with her in the coming opening of
the Art Museum, when lo ! everything seems changed to
me ; the friend of my youth has gone, and with her the
" light of many days." I cannot express to you how keenly
I feel her going, and but for the glorious hope of a happy
hereafter for her, we should indeed mourn without comfort.
She goes not empty-handed to her Maker and loving
Father, and in that we may try to feel comforted. That
she has left a worthy and noble example to us all, who can
doubt ? I grieve with you most sincerely in the loss of
your companion, your brave, loyal and loving spouse.
* * * * -x- * -X- #
Very sincerely, your friend, A. M. W.
Dr Morse Stewart,
Jefferson Ave., Detroit Michigan.

LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE. 41
Cambridge, Mass., June 10, 1888.
Dr. Morse Stewart:
Mt Dear Sie — Through a Detroit newspaper I have
received the sad intelligence of the death of Mrs. Stewart.
Hardly anything could have surprised or shocked me more.
I never thought that I should survive her. It seemed to
me that she had a physical strength and mental vigor which
would certainly carry her to a good old age. In the great
sorrow which has fallen upon you and your children, I can
say nothing which can console your grief or theirs, but I
beg to assure you and them of my tender and deep sym
pathy. I grieve for you all, and I grieve that I have lost a
friend who, when I was a stranger in Detroit, took me to
her home and made me welcome there. I have ever felt
under obligations to her for the courtesy and kindness with
which she treated me. She was a noble woman, and I am
better for having known her. But vain will seem to you
any words that I can write. Please remember me kindly
to your children, and acce'pt for yourself the respect and
esteem of CYRUS WOODMAN.

FROM A PERSONAL FRIEND, AND LONG AN ASSOCIATE
IN CHARITABLE WORK. Paris, June 9, 1888.
Deae De. Stewaet — The sad news has just reached me
that my dear Mrs. Stewart has been called to her heavenly
home. Oh ! how can we live without her ? What a strange
Providence to take away one who to us seems so neces
sary. In all our meetings your dear wife was the one upon
whom we all leaned, and it seems as though this was a sor
row that touched thousands of hearts. Truly, if sympathy
will soothe, you and your family will be comforted. Her

42 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
work is finished, and she has gone to receive the reward of
" well done good and faithful servant," and we can but be
trustful enough to feel that all is ordered for some wise
purpose, though it is hard from a human standpoint to
accept our sorrow submissively. Please extend my deepest
sympathy to all of your household in this great bereave
ment, and believe me Sorrowfully yours, H. H. N.

Salem, Oregon, June 5, 1888.
Mt Deae Dootoe — We have just received a paper con
taining the news of your great loss. It came to us as a ter
rible shock, bringing a sense of sore personal bereavement.
Outside of my own personal circle of father, sisters, and
children, I do not think I have any one whom I love as I
love her, or who seems so near of kin as she has always
seemed. She has lived a grand and useful life — always in
the forefront of every good, Christian enterprise — -strong
and uncompromising in character, intrepid and forceful in
expression, as she was noble and commanding in personal
presence. The very sight of her was, to me, always inspir
ing, and at the same time calming. It is a great blow to
me. How often have I ¦ looked forward to meeting her
again, and talking freely with her over many things in which
I longed to have her sympathy or her judgment. I can
hardly realize that that is gone from my reach now. I feel
sore with the loss. And you, my dear Doctor, what a loss
to you. I dare not let myself think of it. You know how
long and how dearly both Will and I have loved you and
yours. You know how acutely we can enter into vour loss
and sympathize with you. We are not friends of yester
day, but received our friendship for yon and yours as a

LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE. 43
heritage from those who have gone before us. I need not
say . one word of Christian consolation. Yon are fitted
to be a teacher in that yourself. I can only write a few
broken words — (for this has fallen upon me so suddenly) —
a few broken words of my intense, loving admiration of
her noble and gifted nature — (she was just enough my
elder to inspire me with enthusiasm) — and to tell you how
both Will and I sorrow with you. Detroit will hardly
seem like Detroit to me any longer. I can hardly think of
it without her. Will joins me in loving messages of sym
pathy to every one of your dear family. There is not one
of them that does not seem to be of our own closest kith
and kin. Good-bye, my dear Doctor and friend. God
bless and keep and comfort and strengthen you until you
meet again her who has so long walked life's paths with
you — a true and noble helpmeet. The lives you have bpth
lived in our beautiful city of Detroit are known to all — a
blessing to the city. Truly, many, very many, rise up on
all sides to call you blessed.
Your loving and sympathizing friend, M. S. L.
"Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not."
Her grandfather, Robert Stuart, of glorious memory, was an elder in
Dr. Duffield's Detroit church, and his fast friend through life. The
friendship extended to the families, and has passed down through three
generations to the present time.

Igsiracts from f^araits filler*.

April 25th, 1872.
My own Deae Husband — I seize a moment, while we
wait for a freight train, in which to tell you that we are
almost at Omaha ; have had neither trouble nor detention,
and am already feeling better than I have for many a long
day — hungry for my breakfast and ready for my dinner.
The dining car where I am now waiting for my breakfast
is tidy and well served. The cook has made me a cup of
lovely chocolate, and peace and comfort reign. Thus far
I have got on so nicely that I anticipate no trouble, but
will be taken care of by machinery, as Mrs. Farnsworth
knows. Dearest love to all at home, and a special kiss for
Robert. It was mighty sensible to give me those photo
graphs. Ever, my dearest, your own BELLE.

May 7th, 1872.
I wrote you yesterday, but as my plans had taken no
definite shape then, I think you will not object to receive,
and I certainly do not to send, more definite news of my
trip. * * * I laughed at your anxiety about my extra
baggage. That I had it I have no sort of doubt, but I did
not have to pay a penny. Why, I cannot tell, except
because of my unfailing habit of falling on my feet. * *
* May 11th. — I can give you no idea of those wonderful
and mysterious things, the Geysers. I did so wish you and
Dnff were with me. Perhaps when I see you face to face

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 45
I can say much that pen refuses to write. * * *
May 17th. — I had anticipated a rough passage by sea, and
sure enough as we went through the Golden Gate and
struck " the bar," it, as Mr. Wood said, " floored people as
a bar almost always does." The morning we started, I
received your Sabbath letter, inclosing Belle's and Mamie's,
and I do not think I ever enjoyed anj'thing more than that
amount and variety of home news — to hear that Robbin
enjoyed his play in the open air, to know that Mamie
"went to bed at 8 o'clock because Aunt Sarah said she
must ;" to realize that " Miss Brunson " was the "head of the
home and family just as if she had been born to the situa
tion ; that the servants were doing well and the house
running smoothly," was inexpressible comfort. So when we
went over " the bar " I told Mr. Wood I was feeling very
sleepy (poor fellow, he will never get over laughing about
it), and he conducted me to my state room, where I seized
a bowl and deposited my breakfast outside of my stomach
without further preliminary remark, and retired to my
berth for thirty-six hours. I was not very sick, and " took
my gruel regular." * * I begin to feel uneasy about
D.'s studies. , It will give me great pain to see him
abandon the full education we had desired for him. Dear
me, our children are reaching that point- where they need
our best judgment. God help us to judge wisely for their
future. * * May 28th (Black's Hotel).— The Yosemite
Falls are thundering in my very face just opposite the
windows. I cannot express to you my sensations on view-
*ing this extraordinary and overwhelming scenery. It's all
one can do to hold one's heart still. How I long to see
you and tell you all I have seen and heard and thought
since we have been separated. Dearest, you cannot think
how all this beautiful nature — all these hearty, whole-

46 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
souled people, all this fresh, new world, has refreshed mind
and soul as well as body. * * * June 4th.— I was
dreadfully sorry to hear such an account of Dr. W  .
Whatever he may have been as a man in times past, he is
now a patient, hard-working, clear-sighted, well read and
cultivated practitioner, weary with but not of his work.
He reminded me a little of yourself. I offered him a fee,
of course, and was disappointed when he declined it, and
said to him frankly, " I should feel more at liberty to con
sult you, Doctor, if I had the same privilege of compensa
tion." He was kind and polite as a hurried man can be.
* * * I trust I shall have learned, or partially learned,
one thing by this journey, *'. e., neither to look forward or
backward. "In all my Lord's appointed ways my journey
I'll pursue." I have stood face to face with a death of
horror, and the trial was removed. I will no more vex my
soul with the future. * * * June 6th. — Nobody else
could drift through the world always with some ready
hand to take care of me — a born Micawber — and yet I
shall be very glad to get back to my rightful protector.
How thankful I shall be to have you at the " Pointe," for
that is a very divided existence, living alone as we do, and
sometimes I fear I grow morbid. But will not the eigh
teen miles a day be hard upon you ? Of course not much
harder than the unsatisfactory way we see you three times
a week. * * * June 9th. — Your letter acknowledging
the receipt of the photographs readied me yesterday. Of
course, my darling, they were all for you, if you fancied
them. I thought them better than anything I ever had
taken. Gen. W-ilcox told me that the atmosphere was so
perfect in San Francisco that the photographs were inevit
ably good, and advised me to sit for one. I am so glad
now that I did so. * * * June 17th (St. Louis).— I

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 47
hoped to get here and be able to rest, but Mrs. K  , the
housekeeper of the hotel, and a thorough lady, insisted that
I should have a physician. I had a fat, simple soul at
Kansas City, who said I was safe to come on here, and it's
only a wonder I am not dead ; so I was shy of a doctor,
but Mrs. K  sent for Dr. Bower, who presented him
self promptly, and talked like a Dutchman — asked my
troubles, was I married, etc., etc., and when I said yes, my
husband is Dr. Morse Stewart, of Detroit, he jumped up,
shook hands with me, expressed his admiration for you,
" He is an elegant man," etc., etc., promised to cure me in
three days, show me the elephant of St. Louis, and send
me home to you this week. He said if I had been a horse
I would probably have died of such journeying and sick
ness, but a woman is a different thing. Mrs. K  has
sent in a woman, who has rubbed me with alcohol. Dr.
Bower's medicine has come, and I have taken a dose. You
might come on here after me. If ever a woman longed
for her husband, it was your wife, my dearest. I can write
no more, I am so tired. Your St. Louis letters were like
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. Thanks for
your faithfulness. Ever your own poor wife, your own BELLE.

Williamsburg, Pa., June 15, 1879.
Mt Deae Husband — As we have a few minutes before
dinner, I avail myself of them to answer your letter of the
13th, received just as I was going to bed. The mail comes
in at 9.30 p. m., so you see what odd hours we have
for everything. I am just home from church (Presbyte
rian), where there were gathered about two hundred —
respectable in appearance and conduct, and with rather

48 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
more than the average mental endowment of a village in a
mountainous country — (this is a high valley). The pastor
is quite an aged man, whose only memory of me was when
I was a three-year old child in old Carlisle. I have not
heard " real old-fashioned preaching " before in a very long
time, but notwithstanding all that is said against it, as being
dry and doctrinal, I was glad when Mr. White took the
text, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels," etc.,
and divided his subject into two heads, each with three divi
sions, and followed out systematically God's plan for his
own glory. Every assumption he made, he proved from
God's word; and when I came away from the church, I
brought something with me. I was not stuffed with Sun
day school saw-dust, but fed as by an under shepherd, albeit
he is past seventy, and looks as if he might break up any
moment. 'Not that he is thin and scrawny, but he has a
tremendous struggle to get his voice when he once loses it.
He told Mrs. Roller that my resemblance to my mother
was something most extraordinary. I was out when he
called. The blessed quiet of this place sinks deeper and
deeper into my soul, and they tell me I look better than
when I came. It does not weary me. I do not care what
they eat or drink or wear. I do not even read and study,
or think or plan, but sit in the shadow or the sunshine, and
see and hear the water of the spring or the Juniata, and
feel the fresh breeze that comes down from the hillsides
(one of them is almost like Heidelberg), and think — well,
of mere physical existence. Yet I do not dare recom
mend any one else to come here — people view things so
differently. They might not think Mrs. R.'s tin coffee pot
just the thing, or feel happy because the dessert is served
while the meat is on the table. But as I could eat off her

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. • 49
kitchen floor or table, and as I never tasted better bread in
my life, and as I have butter and buttermilk that appeal to
my tenderest sensibilities, I do not think it well to be more
nice than wise.
Last Friday I took a drive. Oh, how beautiful the
scenery is ! But driving seems to give me a definite know
ledge of every joint in the spine of my back, and I will
not go again very soon. I wonder if Robbie is out at the
Pointe ? Trusting you are all well, and sending love to the
family " individually and collectively," as father use to say,
I am ever your affectionate wife,
BELLE D. S.

To Her Son, M., Jr.:
" On my return from  , I found a despatch awaiting
me announcing the death of my dear nephew, S. W. D.
He has had a very long illness, great suffering, the agony
ending in mortification, which set in on Monday. Oh ! I
am glad the struggle is over, thankful that his poor tor
tured body is at rest, rejoicing that at last he is 'with
Christ, which is far better.' One of the glorious hopes of
Heaven is that the inhabitants nevermore say c I am sick.'
Your father has not felt well enough to leave home, and I
do not mean to leave him even to accept your invitation.
But we wish very much to see you."
In another letter she writes :
" The remains of your cousin S. W. D. reached here and
were met at the train by  . We went at once to Elm-
wood, and laid the mortal remains of a brave, good, bril
liant and learned man to rest until the resurrection."
Three days later she writes of the death of another cousin:
"I would have closed her eyes in death; but ten min-

50 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
utes later I performed that last sad office — which ought
to have been done earlier — then, draping about the poor
little thing's dead face an exquisite bit of lace, I laid some
lilies of the valley near her cheek, and she looked the little
gentlewoman that she was — all the pain, no, not all, but
very much of the pain and sorrow and anguish of her life
had passed from her face, and she looked young and sweet
and pretty."
" I dread the summer. It seems full of yawning graves.
To think that in less than four months I have laid away so
many. " I fear your birthday gift will come too late ; but remem
ber, my dear son, my heart and mind and soul, with all its
spiritual powers, will be fixed upon you all that day. May
God bless yon and keep you, drawing you ever by His own
Holy Spirit, nearer and nearer the great loving heart of
Christ our Lord.
"D.'s entering actively into politics was a great pain and
distress to us, as we had suffered enough from its contami
nating influences. I would be delighted to go to R. to see
you, for my heart aches and breaks for the sight of my
son ; but the serious condition of your father's strength
prevents it. * * * For a time I have been fearing you
were ill, perhaps it is the mother's instinct told the story.
* * * Ever since your cousin S. W. D.'s death I have
felt so unsafe and unsettled. In the general order of
nature, he ought to have outlived me long, and now there
is no sense "of certainty as to the younger ones. * * *
Your father has brought in your last letter. I do not like
the idea of your postponing your visit home so long, or
until after Belie may visit you, and I hope you will arrange
to come at once, for before the 1st of September many will
be preparing to flee. People tell me I am looking very

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 51
well, but I feel awfully spent all the time. It is now nearly
two years since I have seen you, my own son, and the
mother's heart within me aches and breaks to gather you
with your brothers and sisters, once more a whole family
united. * * * I was glad to see you remembered your
father's birthday, albeit it makes me sad to see how fast he
is drifting into old age. I think you will find the traces of
time's chisel very marked when you next meet him. But
his resolute, indomitable spirit keeps him at his work, and
his ripe wisdom causes him to have more than enough to
do. If you only come home to us and make a visit, that
will comfort your father's heart, I shall praise God and
rejoice. As for myself, I have a heart hunger for the sight
of your face that is not to' be expressed. When H. P. told
me how well you looked, and what a pleasant call he had
with you, he little knew the good news he was telling. To
think that I will have you all about me at the " Pointe " is
almost too good news to be true. * * * I send you a
picture of the dear little boy on whose grave is written the
record, ' Morse Stewart Lothrop, born October 4, 1886 ;
died January 25, 1887.' Your sister has had a sore trial
that still weighs heavily on her, and, indeed, will for all her
life. * * * My time is the football of every one's
whims, and is interrupted to such a degree that many a
letter grows old and stale before it is ever posted. * . * *
When we came here all the householders in the square
were living, all old friends ; and now Gov. McClelland has
passed away, leaving your father the only surviving one. I
think he was the youngest of them all. * * Our
prayers are continually for you, and that a covenant-keep
ing God may bring yon to Himself. My only wish for my
children is that they may be mete for the heavenly inherit
ance. * * * Your letter of a promised visit reached

52 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
us while D. was still hanging between life and death, and
I dared not look ahead as far as Christmas — nay, not as far
as the morrow. It was an awful sight to see that huge
man, the very embodiment of physical strength and vigor,
in such a plight ; for days he was speechless, and for
days his effort to subdue the cough was a long manifesta
tion of patient courage, which in the end saved his life. I
was then suffering greatly from rheumatism, and used salol,
a new remedy, and, thank God, it gave me strength and
relief to get through my great task. * * * May God
in His infinite loving kindness show you the right path,
and your own free will lead you to walk therein.
" Do you dream, my son, you cannot be missed, and think
it is a light trial for us to have you away from home at such
a season ? Do you suppose that there is ever a day or- an
hour that you are not in our hearts and thoughts ? I have
loved my son, my first-born, truly and faithfully and sadly,
as ever a mother did or could. I cannot bear to see any
one in your place at table. You are a very capable man,
well educated, quick witted, and you ought to be honored.
I love you, and think of you day and night. Oh ! if I
could only see you accept Jesus as your Saviour, I would
have nothing more to ask for you. Life and fame and
earthly treasure are such poor things in comparison with
that blessed hope of immortal joy."

ToI.a.B.S.: April 16, 1880.
Mt Deae Child — After the Stewart family have had a
tempest in a teapot that has blown the cover off, things
subside quicker and milder and more moderately than with
other folk. Friday, Mary was quite sick. Sunday, I went
to church to hear Dr. McCosh. On Monday my arrano-e-

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 53
ments were made for house-cleaning and dressmaking.
Monday morning your father, not liking John Burgess' tone ,
dismissed him on the spot. D  's five dogs attacked
Knapp, the cleaner, tore her clothes off her back, fright
ened her to that degree and made her so mad ; besides
that, my house cleaning was against wind and tide. Just
then your letter came, making a little home-sick plaint
(No. 2), and as your father was taking an airing in the " Yal
ley of Decision," he wrote yon to come home at once. I
was too mixed up to interfere, for I had no laundress, an
obstreperous man servant and rampant cleaner, and my face
was puffed and swelled till I was almost blind, due largely
to the exposure in Ann Arbor. I had struck with Jepkins,
the carpet-layer ; W. D. came to ask a room while Fr  's
chamber was occupied ; M  's throat broke out with
diphtheria ; the room to be cleaned was emptied into the
hall ; and anything more thoroughly at sixes and sevens than
were this family does not often occur. I had a very quiet
but mighty decided understanding with D. about the dogs,
and I should have dog-buttoned them in forty-eight hours if
something had not been done. * * * To-day your let
ter of answer has come — just about what I have expected,
and the response to it the usual back-down of your indul
gent parent. * * * To-day things begin to take shape.
John Neff is hereto tern. Your room is cleaned. I have
engaged a laundress. The dresses are finishing off — in
other words, " the old woman expects to get home before
dark." Love to all. MOTHER.

February 12, 1884.
Mt Deae Child — I scarcely know where this letter will
find you, as I thought you might feel it your duty to go

54 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
back to P  . Now, my advice to you is to take a week
or two at Atlantic City before you go back. After your
father received your last letter he sat right down and wrote
you an epistle as long as a sermon, saying nothing to me
till his letter was finished. My own impulse, and, indeed,
my long desire, is that you should come home, but your
father said we must consider "what is for the best in the
long run," and whether you will be better at home or
abroad I can not take it upon myself to decide. I so often
think that your father and you understand each other so
much better, that his judgment is far preferable to mine.
Still four people in one room is too maddening to be
thought of. Some human natures are blood suckers, *. e.,
draw on your vitality till your nervous strength is exhausted.
The myth of the vampire has a foundation of fact in ner
vous disorders. Now, understand, I believe you have
strength of character enougli to hold in abeyance hysterics
(which are a safety valve). St. Vitus' dance is an irrepres
sible fandango that I hope yon may never have to add
to your repertoire. Then there are all sorts of combina
tions of nerves and muscles that are in the main unpleasant.
So, 'on general principles, I would say take a room by your
self, say your prayers, and mean them, comfort and calm
your heart with the words of God, rest in your Saviour's
love, and walk as you may be led and guided of His holy
Spirit, then, let what will, come. Do yon remember how '
many times He counseled and encouraged quiet — the quiet
and rest of nature ? In the 23d Psalm David literally tells
how he through the still waters and green pastures restored
his soul, and after that, came the paths of righteousness.
Go somewhere by the sea for a week or fortnight — say
fortnight to begin with — and just drink in a long, deep
draught of nature. I need such a refreshing, and so must

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 55
you, for you are an odd mixture of Stewart and Bethune.
You will save time and money, health and usefulness — I
do not say life, for you are of strong vital fibre.
****** May 15, 1884.—
Now, young woman, if you practice on me this summer,
you must go to old Stornay at Hazeltine's and select one or
two of those copies or photographs of Denner's old women
(he had several here, but I did not get any), and just study
them, till you get the theory of age well grounded. Age
means goodness or badness, love or hate, rest or unrest,
patience or impatience, faith or doubt, hope or despair. It
means the patience of a blessed hope or the philosophy of
fatalism. If you can paint the inside of me on the outside
of me, well and good, but the " Sairy Gamps " you usually
produce are a libel on a respectable mother, and as to your
poor father, such roues and venerable dudes and helpless
inebriates as you make of him, are too much altogether.
* * * * * I do not wonder that your
concert opened the flood-gates. I never heard any great
thing of Wagner's but the " Flying Dutchman," which was
none too well put on the stage or accompanied, and yet I
did not sleep for two nights afterwards. His music is, as
you once said of Carl Marr's drawing, " tight," a certain
perfection that is too perfect for this out-of-joint world.
The family are all talking about the failure, and the state
ment that all F  's money and her father's too have
been swept away. Fine relations may be very fine, but
when they ruin one altogether it's paying too dear for finery;
Well, in my half century of life I have seen as many peo
ple come down like sticks as I have seen go up like rockets.
Those that stay up are the exceptions. * * * Your
Uncle D. says when you are through practicing on me you

56 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
may try him. If you do as well as you do for your father,
yon will make a water tramp of D  .
Ever your loving MOTHER.

To M. B. 8.: January 15, 1884. ,
Keep your manners and cultivate your mind and your
heart. Especially try to attain sincerity ; that alone will
give true dignity. Truth is force. I used to think that a
rush was the most prevailing force, but I have changed my
mind. A steady pressure is the strongest power, after all,
and the truth is always that. * * * March 26, 1884.
— The Thompson Home is hurrying on to completion, and
it will be a noble monument. Poor dear Mrs. Thompson
prayed — or rather gave thanks in her prayer — " that, one to
whose heart this work was so dear was seeing the desire of
her eyes." Was it not sweet in her to be glad for me. My
present hope is for a mission house on Franklin street.
Our school does so well that the influence of the teaching
is being felt all through the neighborhood, and even
recognized. * * April 8, 1884 (Wedding Anniversary)
— Your sweet little letter came to-day, and your father and
I read it with a pang of blessed self-reproach, for we, poor
people, had been unobservant, of the day. The truth is, I
was really sick in bed with a hard influenza. It struck me
like a blow. All last week I had been hard at work
cleaning closets, writing an important report, changing my
laundress, attending board meetings (two, no, ' three, in one
day, and the first two hours long), and every day I was say
ing to myself, "Mamie has not had her letter yet." I
hope you do not think that, because your father and I neg
lected to keep our wedding day, we are people of no
sentiment — au contraire, it was more honored in the breach

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 57
than in the observance. We have gone through life not
always patient, but always faithful. The other day I read
"Mr. Isaacs," a very queer novel by Marion Crawford. In
that, there was the deepest, truest estimate of love that
I almost ever saw. Here are we, with faded hair and
wrinkled faces, holding hands sometimes — not because of
love as a sentiment, but because of love as a principle. *
* * December 12, 1884 (Birthday Letter).— It is quite a
number of years ago that you made'your small mark on the
family register, and Duff was called in with the rest to see
the new sister. His generous impulses were all alive, also
his spendthrift tendencies, and Belle and he rushed to the
market, ere you could have been said to have taken a
breathing spell, and having broken their bank to accomplish
it, the two bought you a dancing bear and any amount of
candy — on which, later in the day, they surfeited them
selves. There have been birthdays and birthdays, but none
more distinguished than that celebrated by the dancing
bear. Considering how you and Duff have continued your
warfare, he certainly did his best to watch over the first
month of your life. Every morning at 5 o'clock his little
fat feet would carry him straight to your cradle, to make
sure you were there ; and a certain day when you had been
taken under my wing, and Duff found your shell empty,
he gave one look of misery at what he knew was the real
ization of his worst fears, that I shall never forget. Cer
tainly you were a funny baby, and a brilliant one, but not
a beauty. Once when you were a year old Dr. Stebbins
went up to your cradle, and viewing your exceptionally long
head, remarked, " You don't expect to raise that baby ? "
She was, however, just the one I did expect to raise. *
******* January 29, 1885.—
My next move is to address an open letter to the Board of

58 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Education, asking that sewing be taught in the public
schools, but I need to gather my wits together before I
write it. * * * February 14, 1885. — I think it will be
only when personal responsibility presses upon her that she
will awake to see deeper and think deeper of the every-day
things of life ; and it is after all the every-day things that
tell in a life. To be sure, they are stupid and trifling and
belittling to your mind, but they are duty, and mean self-
sacrifice for you and comfort for those you love. The
older I grow the less I think of doing some great thing.
If you notice, the Gospels all tell the story of our Lord's
helpfulness to those who needed Him by the words, "While
he was in the way." * * * Feb. 24, 1885.— Oh, my
child, take my word for it, the book of God is the open
door to a new and progressive life that is so far beyond
simple mental development that I look with a sad pity
upon those whose minds have been stultified by an nn re
generate heart. I have been reading George Eliot's Life.
How this shows the hollow emptiness of mere intellect!
At one time she had an intense religions fervor ; but fervor
and feeling and sentiment are not enough — unless these
are built upon the strong and sure foundation of the Word
of God as a lamp to our path. And what is the word of
God % It is the principle of faith as the fundamental main
spring of every action of our lives, given us in such words
as the Holy Spirit can alone interpret. How wonderfully
clear Dr. Pentecost made this to me ! I sometimes look
back over all the crookedness and crossness of a day that I
have lived in my own strength, and am filled with shame.
* * * March 19, 1885. — Lent has set in, and the ser
vices go on very frequently. One thing I like greatly in
the Episcopal church — it recognizes the types of Christ
and the doctrines, and Miss Smiley teaches them with great

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 59
fidelity. I never before wished that I had my life to live
over again, but I do now, for if I had filled it full of the
joy of the knowledge of the Word of God, I would have
had no reason to say with the preacher, "All is vanity and
vexation of spirit." Oh, my child, study your Bible, that
you may be able to see God's great plan of love to us. It
seems to me the only worthy study of life. * * *
May 22, 1888.— I felt as if , I had deserted you, dear, yester
day, but I wanted to do what was best. As my father
used to say, " Deo volente," we will do some more work —
and, God willing, it will be better done than before. May
He who never slumbers nor sleeps have you ever, poor
lonely child, in His tenderest keeping. Claim your rights
to all he promised you. Always your loving MOTHER.

To B. 8. S.: November' 1, 1886.
Mt Own Deae Son — Monday morning seems to come
aronnd oftener than once a week, but it is always a day for
beginning a letter to you. We were greatly pleased with
your last epistle, and like your idea of making a memoran
dum of what' you wish to tell or say. To write a good
letter is an art that, like all arts, improves under cultiva
tion. There are various kinds of letters — in some you
exchange family news ; in others, gossip ; in others, a detail
of your everyday life, what you do ; in others, what you
think. Perhaps these and letters of feeling are the highest
type of writing. One grows away from what one says or
feels or thinks, but a boy's (" man's ! ") everyday doings are
very dear to his mother's heart. We were so pleased -with
your description of the fall coloring of the trees that you
saw on that long walk. Nature has always a new page for

60 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
one who loves her. She enters into my own soul and
speaks to it with the voice of God. The world of nature,
the fields, the sky, the water, the hills, the mountains, rest
me as the green pastures and still waters did the Psalmist,
the Lord, through them, restoring my soul, and then comes
the paths of righteousness. * *
I hope P. will send me his Exonian. Put my name or
yours down as a subscriber. It is in P.'s blood to edit a
paper — indeed, I have always thought he would take to
journalism ; but I would warn him against beginning too
early. Let him get his good scholarly foundations under
him, for they are what he is to build his life on. Of course,
I mean his mental life. His moral and spiritual life must
be laid stone by stone, witli those sure principles that are
founded upon the Rock of Ages, and so be a fit temple for
the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, who forever cries in our
hearts to draw us nigh unto God our Father through Jesus
Christ our elder brother. ***** Harry
gave a very pleasant account of your brilliant color and
hearty appearance, and your "exceedingly pleasant rooms."
I pray God, my own dear boy, that I have done the right
thing for you in sending you away. I am lonely enough
without you. If you but live near the dear loving heart of
our Saviour and Redeemer, and plead with Him His exceed
ing rich and precious promises, He will hold you in the hol
low of His hand and guard you as the apple of His eye. No
harm will come nigh you. The evil which is in the world
cannot separate yon from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus. Oh, if you might be granted to tell in your
generation the old, old story, I would unceasingly thank
God. *****i need not te]1 J0U how
hard it was for me to part with you, my youngest and my
dearest child ; but the more I thought of your life and its

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 61
necessary development, the more I became convinced that
it was the right thing to do. I knew you would go where
you would see sin, and it may be crime, for young men too
often sow the wind and, alas ! how many reap the whirl
wind ? But I know you have chosen the good part ; and
that prayer which our Lord prayed for " His own " is mine
also for my own. " I ask not that they be taken out of the
world, but that they be kept from the evil that is in the
world." There is every kind of sin, but if you ask Him
who has chosen you for His friend to aid you and keep you,
He will send His own Holy Spirit to warn you of a subtle
sly evil. And, oh ! heed the slightest whisper of that still
small voice, and turn away quickly ; do not stop one second.
Gross things, such as drink and debauchery of every kind,
will and must offend you. You cannot regard them with
anything but disgust. Set your face like a flint against
them for yourself and for others ; for " he who knoweth to
do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Those poor
wretches who inherit depraved appetites, and have had no
other teachings than a bad example, have some excuse, but
any excuse is a poor thing at best. Oh, day and night I
commend you to Him who is able to keep you from fall
ing. Study the word of God ; make it the man of your
counsels ; attend church and prayer meetings ; join a Bible
class, and '¦'•pray without ceasing." On Friday you will be
seventeen years old, and from this on you will come rapidly
to man's estate. You must take care of yourself. You
must be responsible for yourself to God and man. Your
mother and father can no longer shield you. *
* * * * I wonder if I have made the best
choice for you in your- school. Charles says that Philips
Exeter is a great place for rich merCs sons. I have lived
so long in the world and seen the evil influence of wealth

.62 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
upon both old and young, that I would not choose the
" rich " as the best associates for my children. They are
too often "bumptious" or ungovernable, defiant of the
very restraints that are for their best good, and unsatisfac
tory generally. I trust that in your experience you will
not meet many such among your classmates, tinder all
circumstances remember that " worth makes the man, the
want of it the fellow ; " and remember also, that in the
providence of God your forefathers have always been of
God's nobility, the excellent of the earth, enjoying a cer
tain station in life as people of education and refinement.
Not many of them have been very rich, but all have had
enough, and to spare. I do not think money should be the
first or greatest pursuit. If we seek the best things spirit
ual, God adds all these things, food, raiment, shelter, unto
them. * * * May 6, 1887. — About your suggestion
of a bicycle or a canoe — dear me ! choose the one you will
die by easiest. * * * May 11. — I shared your letter
with the family. Every one expressed approbation of a
bicycle. Duff inquired of Charles why he did not get one,
and thought a physician " like me " should have one for
night work. As he weighs over two hundred pounds, I do
not think he had better indulge in anything but a tricycle.
Fancy him "riding afoot," as the Irishman said. Apropos
of bicycles, your father and I have been noticing the
bicycle accidents. E. P. nearly killed himself by riding
down Fort Hill at Mackinac, on a bicycle, etc. Mary says
if she had a brother " loon " enough to undertake such an
enterprise he had better finish his career early. * * *
June 20, 1887. — And now, my dear boy, I commend you
to God and our Saviour Jesus Christ (who is the God of
Providence), and pray that you may be led of the Spirit
and kept from all evil ; that all your scholarship may be

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 63
used for His honor and glory ; that He who is the all in
all may so fill your heart with courage and rest and peace
in Him that you will know all the joys and blessings of a
son of God. I often think of the hour when we rowed
over that stormy water two years ago. We were certainly
very near death and in imminent danger, but while we
feared and expected a watery grave, we had no fears beyond
that we might have gone to Heaven by water. Now, I
expect the same courage and dependence on your part that
there was then. Ever your loving mother,
ISABELLA G. D. STEWART.

The following letter to her brother, "gone to the war," from its
graphic description of home scenes and the quiet playfulness and humor
which pervades the whole, is so characteristic that no apology is needed
for reproducing it here. It will be seen by the preface that its publica
tion in the Messenger occurred many years after it was written.
Deae Messengee — During a recent visit to Grosse
Pointe we chanced to discover an old letter, describing the
early experiences of a pioneer among the residents of that
now popular summer resort. Tliinking that the account of
a state of things so different from the present may interest
our readers, we have obtained permission to publish it. * *
"Rest Cottage," Grosse Pointe, )
July 18, 1863. j
* * * If I had not promised to tell you when and
how we came to the Pointe, I fear this letter would remain
unwritten, for if truth is stranger than fiction, so are facts
than fancy. Look up to the pleasant name mother gave
my humble little house, that is as " snug as a bug in a rug."
"Snug" sounds very pretty, but for a person of my feet

64 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
and inches it is not always so handy. At all events, I am
extremely comfortable, now that I am here ; but the get
ting here — that was the rub !
My lord and master has no " natural faculty " for any
thing below the practice of medicine, and yet I cannot
help going to him with my small worries. I may be dis
appointed seventy times seven, and yet, in spite of every
experience, I will insist upon leaning upon him, though
half the time he is a broken reed and the other half a sharp
stick in the way of assistance, and after each failure on his
part I find myself making every possible excuse for him
and endless reflections upon myself for my own absurdity.
As usual, I talked over with this chief counselor my plans
for moving upon the following Monday and Tuesday —
explained how I would have my washing done in town on
Monda}7, because " at the Pointe there was no water in the
cistern," but would like a couple of men and*a team to take
out bedsteads, bureaus, trunks and the first thousand and one
accessories to a family, and settle them in the house, while
la vieille Madame and the children would come out on
Tuesday by a hack, on which day the team and men
could bring out all the thousand and two matters remain
ing — such as cooking stoves, tubs, pails, etc. Of course
there is everything to remember, and everything means to
a housekeeper a great deal more than you dream of in your
philosophy. Saturday at tea no engagement of the men had been
made, and as men are at a premium this year, I began to
grow uneasy, but in the evening my helpmeet saw Mon-
derie, and came home with the pleasant assurance that all
would be right for the move on Monday morning ; so I
sought to fit myself by a Sabbath's quiet for all the work
that was to be crowded into the coming week. It was

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 65
after seven o'clock Monday morning that I was awakened
from a most sound and delightful sleep by the voice of
Kate, the housemaid, Saying, " Mrs. S  ! Mrs. S  !
there are fwe men and two teams, and they want to know
if you are all ready to load up." Load up, indeed ! With
what ? A red-hot cooking stove and a steaming boiler ? I
rushed to the Doctor for an explanation, but he looked
vague and uncertain. Then I called a council of war, and
Monderie assured me that he had informed the Doctor that
two teams were better than one, that he could have the two
this day, but that he could not get them again for a long
time — that as the Doctor said " Very well," he supposed
that would do. Here was a clincher, and the Doctor being
thoroughly cornered, took the offensive and declared that
for his part he could not see any particular difference
between two men and one team two days and five men and
two teams one day, except the extra man. The obvious
ness of this remark was almost too much for me, though I
had presence of mind enough to reply that "to climb out
of a window and to be pitched out were similar, in so far
that one got out of the window." Whereupon the Doctor
turned helpless, and left me to do as I pleased in the prem
ises, but to my mind there was no alternative. With such
an army of men to be had of lost — " it might be for days
and it might be forever," — there was nothing for me but to
go forward, which I did with a will, and by three o'clock I
was at the Pointe with all my effects but those I left behind
me. The children and Madame came up in a hack. I sprang
into the buggy, and drawing a tight rein over old Maje,
reached the cottage in time to superintend the loads I had
sent three hours "before. While driving up the gravel road
it flashed across my mind, "If those carpenters have got

66 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
through their work, locked up the house and gone to town,
will not that be a state of things for consideration ? " And
true enough, the cottage and its down-south kitchen were
both locked as tight as locksmiths could do it. This diffi
culty was soon surmounted by Fritz effecting an entrance
through a pane of glass, and I had my loads of miscellane
ous household property nearly put in place, when I saw the
Doctor with the fiery black Jack sweeping up the road like
a hurricane. The two red spots in the horse's nostrils
glowed like living coals, and he looked like the steed of
the Prince of Darkness. In his hand the Doctor waved the
missing keys, and seemed rather appalled at my unconven
tional entrance into the new home. Towards night I dis
covered I had a pin-cushion and no pins ; an inkstand and
no ink ; foolish virgin-like, a lamp and no oil ; and last
and worst, a cooking stove and no cook. About three
o'clock Peter Copper arrived with all the children and
Madame, hungry, but inexpressibly happy to think that at
last they were going to sleep at Grosse Pointe. The house
was organized by putting up stoves and bedsteads, and at
nine p. m. I laid my over-burdened head upon my bolster,
inasmuch as my pillow was in town.
All that night my mind was hard at work, and I got so
little sleep that we were all up by five o'clock, and com
menced a canvass for breakfast. We had bread and cake,
but no meat. M  was dispatched to forage the country
for eggs, and eventually returned with a couple of dozen.
The meal well over, a general course of straightening up took
place. Kate, the housemaid, was decidedly mulish because
the cook had not come out when she did, but preferred (with
out consulting the mistress, of course) to accompany Fritz,
when he brought out the missing links of the S  house
hold. Consequently I looked anxiously townward for

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 67
symptoms of the queen of the kitchen. The butcher came
and brought us meat ; the Bours sent vegetables and fruit.
I hailed a load of wood and bought it, captured a man and
had a load of water drawn, and then watched for Fritz and
his co-laborer. Twelve o'clock came, then one, and no sign
of extraneous aid. Three hungry children must be fed;
we filled them full, and watched the lake shore road with
an interest that began to be alarming. Could Maje, that
brave old beast, have broken his leg? Maybe the Doctor
was sick ; some calamity might have overwhelmed mother
and father. By five o'clock my heart was in my mouth. I
would go to town if I went afoot ; when just at the gate I
saw a bustle and stir. It was Fritz, his retrousse Dutch
nose flaring with indignation. He was on foot, his right
hand holding the reins of that prince and paragon of four-
footed animals, Maje, who came in his satin coat, as if to a
festival, stepping off in his prompt, decisive way, like a
steed of royal blood, and dragging after him, as if not
aware of the incumbrance, a big lumber wagon, Fritz, a
perverse and pugnacious cow, six barrels, two boxes, and a
general stock of indiscriminate litter. When I flew to the
rescue I found that the cook had been too genteel to ride
out in such a vehicle ; that the cow turned rebellious, and
backed and balked in the most aggravating manner. The
rest of the story must be told in Fritz's own English (or
Dutch), as he stood dirty, tired, indignant and short of
language, still holding the reins of the horse and the rope,
and gesticulating as only an angry Dutchman could. I
had asked him, perhaps forcibly, what had kept him so
long. All at once he burst out :
" I nefer see such mens as te Doctor. He donno nod-
ings! Ho he dinks I go mit a cow and a horse? OEfery
mens laughs at dot Dutchmans mit a horse dot pulls to dis

68 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
vay and a cow vot runs avay ! I valks all de vay. I been
comin' since tens o'clock. I shust so tired as I kain be. I
nefer see such tings in all my life ! I holds de horse, and
I pulls de cow. Was fur he dells me put dot shtrap roundt
de cow ? Dree dimes she preak de shtrap and runs avay !
How I pring Mary ? She can no sit on das," and with a
flourish of a very dirty hand, he indicated my side-saddle,
which was perched on top of a barrel in the fore part of
the wagon. "I been comin' — I mean, tens o'clock, and
now I must been gone right pack again. I nefer had nod-
ings to dinner — nodings ! I valks all de vay ! I holds
de horse, I pulls de cow. I nefer see such mens as te
Doctor — he don't know nodings at all ! " And in his
righteous indignation he flung loose the reins of the horse
and the rope of the cow ; then putting his dirty hands to
his still dirtier face, he wept a pint of very dirty tears, and
stamped his feet, and swore high Dutch with such genuine
tragedy as would have made his fortune on any stage.
Maje availed himself of his freedom to dash up to the
house, while the cow, the festive cow, pranced through the
open gate at a 2:40 pace townward, and waved her depart
ing tail round the corner of the neighboring church. At
this juncture Dutch oaths proved inadequate, and Fritz
retired down the road with frantic speed, where he eventu
ally recaptured that sweet and gentle animal, the cow, and
returned exhausted. In the meantime I had followed
Maje with his lumber wagon to the house, where, flinging
myself on the steps of the piazza, I laughed till I cried.
When Fritz came back, cow in hand, to where I was
sitting, I asked him, "What are in all your covered bar
rels ? "
" Das ! " he said ; and he poured out a score or more of
bantam chickens. " Das ! " and out he jerked from the

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 69
second half a dozen ungainly Shanghai hens. " Das ! "
and out jumped a small dog. " Das ! " and he lifted down
the ice-cream pail, of which he carefully removed the cover,
when out scrambled three cats without any tails.
" Voildle menagerie/" said Madame. I fed the poor
hungry Dutchman, the result of which generous care being
that we had no beefsteak for breakfast, and sent him off to
town at once. Suddenly my attention was called to the
fact that the Shanghai hens, the cats and the dog were
regaling themselves out of the only pail of drinking water
there was in the house ; that a Brahma-Pootra chicken had
expired ; that while one bantam was engaged laying an egg
in the water butt, the remainder had gone to roost on the
stovepipe and pot handles ; that Kate, the housemaid, was
" hopping mad " because the cook did not come, and that
the cow had broken through the fence and run away ! On
great occasions I come out. This was one, and I sailed
elegantly through it, and went to bed to spend a sle'epless
night again. The fact is, every time I began to drop into
a doze, the recollection of that unhappy Fritz came over
me, and I laughed myself broad awake.
Wednesday at noon our cook came up with the horse,
the pony and et ceteras enough to help us along consider
ably. In the afternoon of that day the poor Doctor also
appeared, slightly crestfallen at Fritz's experience, and sug
gesting as an offset to Fritz's having taken seven hours,
that he was only fifty minutes on the road. I could not
forbear inquiring why he sent those tailless Manx cats up
and received for reply : " If you had been forced to see
those poor lonely wretches sit on the fence and wash tlieir
faces, you would not ask." * * *

70 MRS. MORSE STEWART. Sabbath Noon, Oct. 31, 1886.
To the Bev. George Duffield:
Mt Deae Beothee — We have just read your last letter
to Mary D  . Did I not know that the Lord' is good, I
would be speechless. He orders aright. If it is life here
with us, the world will be better and sweeter to us all, for
my dear, dear boy's presence in it ; if it is " length of days,
even forever and ever," it will be heaven for him. * * *
Nov. 11, 1886. — I care so little for the routine of life for
myself, but am the veriest Martha for my family. I pray
that you may all experience the power of Christ's love at
this supreme hour, and that His strength and grace may
supply all your needs, being able to say from the depths,
" Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." * * *
Nov. 18, 1886. — I am truly glad our dear boy's people are
praying for him, and wait in hope. Of a surety we are
come to a place where our faith cannot stand in the wisdom
of men, but, blessed be His name, it can stand fast in the
power of God ; but before I ask Him to exert His special
power, the pleading is that His will, His knowledge, His
loving kindness may rule for us. It is such a comfort to
know that his brave heart is willing to live against such
physical odds.. I am still planning to go to you. * * *
May God in His mercy and loving kindness keep you all,
the angel of the Covenant watch over your household until
the morning breaks. * * * Nov. 20, 1886. — I have
received your last letter to Mary, saying that S. W. D. has
had a change for the better. As I understand his case, all
reason is against his being healed, but all revelation makes
it the possible of God, and I stand crying as did that poor
afflicted father whose confession has rung through the
ages, " Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief." What
ever the event of all our anxiety may be, of one thing I am

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 71
sure, our poor boy's trial of faith and patience will make a
profound impression for good ; nay, more, for the highest
spiritual good. * * * Feb. 12, 1887. — My poor sister
H  is rapidly passing away, and — . Oh, George, I have
not much courage left. Thank God, to-day I have been able
to cry — to realize and accept it all, and pour out the tears
of submission. " Shall not the Lord of all the earth do •
right," and is He not my Father, and ought we not to be
— nay, are we not glad to know they are, or soon will be,
beyond the power of sin and suffering, and knowing the
joy of rest from the weary strife of flesh and spirit, in that
blessed land where the inhabitants shall no more say, " I
am sick." Yesterday was my birthday ; to-day I feel old,
and drag my burden, tiring not of spirit, God be praised,
but, oh, our sorrow is from sin, and I am weary of its
power in the world. Your loving sister BELLE.

Letters to S. W. D.: February 12, 1887.
Mt Own Deae Boy — It makes so little difference
whether this world's battle goes for or against us, if in the
end we win immortal life. Oh ! I can't say it. At all
events I shall think of you and your joy if you leave us,
and be glad the dear Lord has you safe and close and com
forted in his sure arms, and know that sin nor sorrow nor
struggle nor strain can ever break your dear grand heart.
Oh, my boy, I love you so. I have whispered to myself,
" Do not fear, always hope," but I have held your life with
a light hand, that is, I have thought so ; but now I want to
get to my knees and pray that if I must, I may be able to
let you go and wish you joy. Ever since your letter and
George's that gave us such a gleam of hope, I have been

72 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
incapable of writing, and I feared I might say some wrong
word. Over and over, that line of your sparrow song came
into my mind, "Full of all weary weakness," and has
wrung my heart. I know what it is to come back with
every nerve bare to the cold and heat and dampness and
the dryness, and I know, too, how awfully the mind is
colored and discolored by the body, and so I have prayed
that you might have strength for your day and hour ; that
you might, by one supreme effort, lay all before the Great
Physician, and on Him who says " oast thy burden ; " and.
have almost seen your quick, imperious spirit fling the
crushing thing off, not with impatience, but the joy of rescue
and relief, the joy of faith. My heart aches so, and my
eyes are so blind with distress, that — (See Habakuk 2:1).
****** March 2 and 3,
1887. — I cannot tell you why my hand has been holden and
I have not written to you, for you are never out of my
thoughts and prayers. I am at this moment at my dear
 house. Her children are with her at this writing,
but within an hour or two at the furthest I must close her
eyes in death. She goes home to her Father's house, to a
mansion prepared for her. I am very fond of her, so fond
that I would not hold her back. Her children are deeply
devoted to her. Through all the long hours of the night
that is passed I have had you always before me. Every
thing I did for  has been in a figure for you. *
Thursday a. m. — It was just as I said above. Her children
stood around her, while I prayed that she might find that
Jesus could make a dying bed feel soft as downy pillows
are. " The wrench that set her free " was but a slumber
ing over into a better home. I then did what I could for
the dear children (they are all men and women). I had
started the day with sorrow of heart for you all, and your

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 73
father and yourself and  and her dear ones seemed a
great many for the arms (poor, feeble things) of my faith ;
and then as a mercy, nay, as a blessing from Him who loves
us, came your dear letter and Hattie's. Your uncle is
answering it at this moment. Oh, my boy, I cannot bear
to lose you. Oh, I pray my Heavenly Father that He will
spare me a little that I may recover my strength ere I
go hence. I do not understand it at all ; but, as dear old
Dr. Cooper said, " The Lord Jesus makes no mistakes."
He knows — He knows — and round our ignorance is His
knowledge. I must go now to  . My eyes are blind
with tears, my heart affrighted, my hands trembling, and I
must seize a moment to stay my soul by looking unto Him
who is the author and finisher (Oh, God be praised that my
Saviour is responsible for the finishing of my faith), for
it's the homestretch that tries the poor beast that runs to
win. Love and thanks to dear Hattie. God ordered her
letter to reach me just when it did. * * * Monday,
March 7 — 10 a. m. — The darkest hour is always nearest
dawn. To-day there is more brightness in life because of
your words. Last week I felt as if I were to bury you all.
I had a procession as long as a dinner list, and when it came
to a crepe bonnet and veil, it was the last ounce. I loould
not put on the latter. If I did not wear that thing I could
look beyond the present, but with that dragging my head
and heart back into the bitterness of it all — it was too
much. * * * I am so glad you are looking into
all the wonderful powers of body as well as soul that we
possess in Christ Jesus. I am intensely conservative, and
distrust upside down words, but I want every right I can
claim in Christ. I propose to go in and possess that land,
even if upside down people do jostle me. Do you notice
how strong the trend of mind is in the channel of mystic
10

74 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
thought? Now, I am no mystic, and am afraid of too
much quietism, even although I would be tempted to have
my son lapped about and lulled by the down of tlieir
dreamy languor ; but there is too much to do in speeding
the Gospel — it is all significant of a great transition time.
Ever your loving AUNT BELLE.

To Mrs. 8. W. D.: June 18, 1887.
* * * * * I often, na3r, constantly, think
of you and my brother, in your empty house, and how all
real living must seem ended. I mean the living of feeling
and sentiment. Of course this is not right. Life is not,
and should not be, based upon feeling. How often I gird
myself with those words— strong, imperious, helpful as
none other — "JLea/oing the things that are behind, I press
forward." I promised you that when the grass was green
above him we so dearly love, I would let you know. Last
night I drove out to our " God's acre," and reached the spot
just as heavy rain began to fall. It seemed to me I never
saw so beautifully made a grave — like a great slab of turf
from which every springing blade spoke to Him of him.
How peaceful and restful and beautiful all was, and I
thanked God there was such a home here for us all. * *
Always the loving AUNT BELLE.

The following letter, written shortly after the death of her father to a
lady much her senior in age, explains itself. The date is not given.
Mt Deae Mes.  I left you in such haste to-night
that I quite forgot to bring away the Unitarian book you
offered me. I confess I would be glad to see it, and am
sorry my mind cannot look into it to-night while our con-

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 75
versation is fresh. I send you a book that has given me
great pleasure, and I have no doubt you will enjoy it also,
" The Soul, Instinct and Life." It has always been my
pleasure to believe that each human soul, each immortal
soul, is as much the gift of God as was the first soul of
mankind, even the soul of Adam. Nothing could have
untied the knot that fastened it to the God-like body of our
first Father in the flesh but sin ; " through sin came death."
Dr. Payne does not venture into doctrines — they are not
quite his province. But search with all the eyes science
has, and she cannot find when the soul comes, how it goes.
Therefore the revealed Word must be our guide. It
comes, following all the laws of nature, all the orderings of
Him who " orders all things from the beginning of the
world," but it comes all the same by the will of God, just
as it goes by the will of God. He works for every immor
tal being, the same great miracle he wrought for Adam.
Our soul is God's special, personal, individual gift from
Himself to each one of us. No materialism could change
what is so thoroughly my faith, however specious it might
be. Therefore, please send me the book, that I may see
for myself, the confession of the poverty of knowledge of
science of metaphysical research, without the aid and hope
of revelation.
What unites the soul to the body ? God's will. Specu
lation cannot get around that. Whence does it come ?
None but God knows.
Oh, as I saw how with a death grip the mechanism of
his frail body held that immortal soul that took its flight
ere the glory of the summer had come in, I realized, as
never before, the utter poverty of philosophy — the blessed
hope of a~ glorious immortality. When that fatal wrench
came, that grand, brave head dropped forward, my heart

76 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
gave one great pang of joy ; and amid the horror, the deso
lation, the wreck of my life, it cried out, " I give you joy,
my darling ! " What was my father's body ? An ill-
ordered thing at best ; but his soul was past compare. It
had been washed white in the blood of the Lamb. It
shone through all the cumbering flesh with a lambent flame
that showed the body was the temple of the Holy Ghost.
No one could have called him possessed of any claim to
beauty, no matter how slight, yet when we wrapped him in
his winding sheet and laid him in his shroud, that poor,
misshapen figure, that plain, plain face, took on it the glory
of some grand old saint. What was it ? Why was it ? It
was the impress that a purified soul had left upon that
natural body, which I shall see no more either here or here
after, for it will be raised a more glorious body ; and the
soul (that was my father to me) will have been one with
Christ, ere He claims it as His own.
Oh, if I win Heaven at last, ere I see the King in His
glory, I will hear my father say, "My child, my poor
child ! " B. D. 8.

EXTRACT FROM A PRIVATE LETTER ON THE LOSS OF
THE PROHIBITORY AMENDMENT.
* * I feel deeply the loss of the prohibitory amend
ment. It is not a question to be reasoned upon, it is a
principle of dire necessity. We have fallen on times of
dire necessity, upon times when men tell us they cannot
resist their appetites. If they tell us the truth, then such
poor weak things need protection ; if they tell a falsehood,
and can not resist their appetites because'they will not, then
decent people must protect themselves the best they can.
It is all very well to say let men destroy themselves if they

EXTRACTS FROM FAMILY LETTERS. 77
want to do so. But a boy is not a man. A lunatic is a
madman. A child born with the brand of a drunken
father upon him, is the charge of the State or county after
he has worn a good mother's life away. Oh, I cannot bear
to talk about it. Liquor drives me to a frenzy. I went to
see poor Mrs.  the other day. Her son cannot live
long. He is out of his head — in addition to his other
troubles — which is sad for a mother to bear. I have
watched poor mothers with their trials and cares, and I have
groaned at the thought of the deadly inheritances poor
fathers have left to their children — an insatiable appetite
for strong drink and an unsettled brain.

gftissjcjellamfltts 'Writings.

ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO THE 12th ANNUAL MEETING
OF THE WOMEN'S BOARD OF MISSIONS OF THE
NORTHWEST PRESBYTERIANS.
Ladies — Nay more — let me say Friends and Co-workers
in the cause represented here to-day : It is not only a duty
imposed upon me, but a great pleasure, to welcome you to
dear old Detroit — to offer you the best our hearts and hands
can give, presenting you the freedom of our city, welcom
ing you to hearth and home and tabernacle of God, beauti
fied for your coming by the loving hands of those who
worship at its altar.
On this, the twelfth anniversary of our women's work,
we are .glad to say, come and be 'one with us — come and
abide with us — let our homes be your homes during the
brief space allotted for the consideration of the great prob
lem before us, because one hope and purpose is in us all.
Need I define it ? The world's statistics are large — alas,
yet more are they heavy and disheartening. Let us eschew
them numerically, and take on trust the little segment of
the world that the charts mark with the white emblem of
Christian purity. It is so small a portion that it illustrates
even after all effort, that the field is the world.
The vastness of the field, and the magnitude of the labor
would be appalling, had we not the prototype in the vision
of the prophet Daniel.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 79
" I saw and behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and
the height thereof was great — the tree grew and was strong,
and the height thereof reached unto Heaven, and the sight
thereof to the end of all the earth ; the leaves thereof were
fair, and the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for
all. The beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the
fowls of the heavens dwelt in the boughs thereof, and all
flesh was fed of it ! "
Our Lord himself gave the interpretation, when he said :
" The kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of mustard
seed which a man took and sowed in his field — which,
indeed, is the least of all seeds — but when it is grown, it is
the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree so that the
birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof."
God planted His mustard seed in human nature — in
Jesus Christ — the Holy Spirit is ever planting and nour
ishing Jesus Christ and faith in His redeeming love in our'
hearts — and we need only to give it room to grow till the
believing soul becomes a tree.
Has not he who of all sinful men, sounded the deepest
depths of the deep things of God, told us " that the commu
nication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowl
edging of every good thing which is in you in Christ
Jesus ? "
To believe on the Lord Jesus Christ may look too little,
but the least thread of truth is full of undreamed-of possi
bilities. If we have but the genuine love, and sow it here
and there over the great field ; if we hide the gospel in
every kingdom of the earth, and pray that it have room and
power to grow — the. great branches of each believing life
that has truly lived Christ's love will be a shelter, to which
all world-wearied, sin-stained souls may fly for sympathy,
help, teaching, guidance and strength. Sow, therefore, O

80 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
sower, with tears of thanksgiving for the seed itself ; and
wait that harvest where the blessed angels are the reapers.
Women have a rare right of service in this field, for
the one-half of the field is made up of women — women
like ourselves in all save the great fundamental principles
of a soul's life and being — a soul's freedom — the free will
of the knowledge of good and evil. We must ask of God
and man that they have from henceforth the inalienable
right of choice, and to cause them to become sowers in
their turn. And it is curious to see amid all this unusual
gathering how intuitively you — my sisters — my Presbyte
rian sisters — have recognized that in Christ there is liberty.
The women of His Church have in this great transition
time been quickened by a vital impulse of growth. The
pulse of a new and better and deeper purpose of life throbs
through your souls this day.
In a simple, womanly fashion you have come independ
ently to believe that, when St. Paul said " Ye may all
prophesy one by one — that all may be comforted ;" the
words limiting this permission, "Let your women keep
silence in the churches," were but a command to be silent
under special circumstances, and implied liberty to speak in
others. A precept to be silent in the church can by no ingenuity
be made to impose silence in the world, from the hour,
now well-nigh nineteen centuries ago, when the first Mary —
blessed among women — with prophetic outcry proclaimed,
"His mercy is on them that fear Him, from generation to
generation," because of her coming Redeemer. Nor yet
from the day when another Mary, with the foresight of
faith, broke for His burial the box of precious ointment
(ere His less discerning disciples had consented to believe
that He could die), and later in His history went seeking

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 81
with wistful eyes to find at the 'sepulchre the key to the
mystery of a conquered grave. Though she departed
thence unsatisfied, did she not return again with the birth-
pang of faith upon her, weeping sore with her pain, which
indeed was but the travail of hope, until she heard the throb
of the living child of her soul in that simple everyday word
of her life, " Mary." What wonder she was swift to turn
and answer, "Rabboni!" and would fain have clasped
Him to her heart. Recall, oh my sisters, how Jesus said
unto her, " Touch me not, but go and say."
This was not her commission alone, but ours through all
the ages. To teach Christ, is more His will than to touch
Him. She, a weak, but faithful woman, was the first mes
senger of the risen Lord ; sent straight to the poor coward
who had denied Him ; sent with the words of his pardon
and the good tidings of His near ascension " to my God and
your God."
History repeats itself. This old world is well nigh at
the end of its sixty centuries since God's Sabbath of rest
from creation — and there are those who wait in hope for
the long rest of Christ's glory and presence on earth, when
the enemy wiU be shut and sealed away in the great pit.
And those who watch, with lamps trimmed and burning, for
the hour which no man knoweth — not even the angels of
God — when the bridegroom cometh ; whisper often in
tones of assurance, " It can't be long now."
Thus, by some subtle impress of the Spirit, women begin
to look for the thing spoken of by Joel, the prophet, and
reiterated in that wondrous sermon of St. Peter to " the
hundred and twenty believers " (of whom so large a portion
were women), " who were with one accord in one place."
" And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I
11

82 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy," *. e., understand and
explain the mysterious, hidden sense of Scripture by an
immediate illumination and motion of the Spirit."
With the simple dignity of their royal birth, Christian
women have taken the right, the equal right, to be teachers
and helpers of men. They have gone to the battle field,
the camp, the hospital, to the drunkard and the drunkard's
home, to the navies of England, to the slums of America.
They have gathered the orphans, the friendless, the aged
and the suffering children. They have taught in the
prison and in the Sabbath schools ; and in these later days
they feel that all is not enough, that the shadow of a great
destiny is coming upon them. And we hear of them
taking counsel on every side, as you are this day, for the
service of the King.
When of old you read : " The Lord gave the Word ;
great was the company of those who published it," the
words seemed but the refrain of the psalmist's poetical
thanksgiving. Now, with deeper insight, yon know they
are a prophecy of the last times, whose fulfillment is in the
near future — that it means : " A great host of women who
publish the glad tidings of Christ's love and mercy and
kingly coming."
" The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him ;" to
know His covenant, His whole covenant, until He cometh
in the glory of His Father, with the holy angels.
Let us walk equal to our privileges and worthy of our
vocation ; hastening that time ; ranging ourselves in ranks
as the reserved corps to be called to the front in the hour
of the final struggle and triumph of our Redeemer's king
dom ; knowing that before such " glory the kings of armies
did flee, and she that tarried at home divided the spoil."

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 83

ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO A CONVENTION OF THE M.
W. C. T. UNION, HELD IN DETROIT, DURING FEB
RUARY, 1875.
Ladies — In behalf of a band of quiet but determined
workers in the cause of temperance, I welcome you to-day.
Our counsels and our deliberations may not be those of a
mighty host, or have even the prestige of a strong hand,
but " the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to
the strong." We welcome you here this day, to record
with us a protest against afrevil that bids fair to sap the
life-blood of this Nation, and we know that the protest of a
minority that fears God and desires to obey the law is
potent for good, for it finds an echo in- the heart, the
conscience, the observation, the common sense of every
intelligent man, woman or child in this and all com
munities. The still small voice that cannot be utterly
stifled responds to the truth and necessity of our dec
laration. The living wrecks that founder in our streets, the best
beloved, the brightest in the highest walks of life, show
how the trail of the serpent has sapped their strength or
marred their beauty. Even the dead speak for us. Their
green graves on that hillside city which is all their own,
warn those who thread the mazes of its silent labyrinths
that there, too, sleep hundreds, aye, thousands, the victims
of a monster whose corrupting breath adds horror and dis
quiet to death. From many pulpits have come spoken
words to old and young, bold, clear, forceful notes of
admonition. But, alas, there have been aching, silent
voids even among these "altars of hope — a silence that has
been construed, nay, we believe, misconstrued, more than

84 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
once, into consent of wrong. Let us pray God that a
clearer light may shine upon the pathway of all who lead
us in the ways of righteousness.
We have cause to know that in this State the principles
of total abstinence have fallen upon good ground, and will
everywhere bring forth good fr,uit ; but on the women of
Michigan rests the burden of a duty imposed of God.
Less than a year ago, moved by one mighty impulse of
faith and consecration, they looked to an ever-present
Saviour for help and guidance in this temperance work ; and
we have faith to believe that it is not in a woman's nature
to yield a point of duty. Opposition but intensifies her
intent. She may be wounded, she may be beaten, she may
be slain, but she lives and dies unconqueredf believing that
the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. She
perseveres, for she knows that she — or her example — will
breed up a generation that will carry forward to its fruition
the purpose of her life. This is a great transition time in
the history of temperance. Let us unitedly ally ourselves
more firmly than ever to the cause, and the cause alone —
and plead that God will give "Wisdom and a sound mind"
to those who rule over us — that they may order all law for
the best good of this people.
May a just and merciful God so order our counsels that
from all quarters of this State we shall ask in His name our
law givers and law makers to protect those who are
indirectly the greatest sufferers from the demon of drink,
the women and children.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 85

TRIBUTE TO MRS. GILLMAN.
More than fifteen years ago, at the organization of the
Ladies' Christian Union, a society designing to do Christian
work — Mrs. E. M. Gillman was named Corresponding Sec
retary, but with the rare self-abnegation which character
ized her whole life, she turned to Mrs.  and said : " If
you will only allow your name to go before the public, I
will gladly do every line of the work." This proposal
could not be accepted, but Mrs. Gillman became Recording
Secretary and Mrs.  the Correspondent of the society,
and for eight years these two women wrought as with one
impulse for the organization and perfecting of the Home of
the Friendless. Its work was detailed, its business system
atized, its large usefulness anticipated. The younger
woman of the two, looking back as she does this day, to
these small beginnings, realizes with more intenseness than
ever before how the grand faith of her friend stimulated
into positive work the energies of their little company.
Mrs. E. M. Gillman was born to wealth and station ; was
reared in luxury ; was. educated with scrupulous care ; was
married under the happiest auspices, and spent the first
decade of young motherhood, with every surrounding her
heart could desire ; and then step by step came such sore
trials, such weird and bitter tests of her intrinsic goodness
and greatness, that we did homage to her as the greatest of
those who were " Martyrs without the Crown and Palm."
Her thorough education, her large nature, her great trials,
rallied about her staunch and faithful friends. To rear her
ten children, became the indomitable purpose of her life ;
and yet withal she found time to comfort those who were
in affliction, to help the poor, to lay deep and wide the

86 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
foundations for aid to them, long after her willing hand was
resting from its labors.
There was heroic greatness and goodness about this
woman ; a subtle strength that was like the aroma of
flowers. She " took no moan upon her mouth " — " she let
no tears run smooth" — she neither fainted nor faltered,
and the larger the need of faith, the stronger became her
faithfulness. Her rapidly failing health prevented her
being present at the dedication of our new Home, but she
was contented not to see the fruition of her plans.
" 'Tis somewhat to have known
One woman in this sorrowful bad earth,
Whose very loss can yet bequeath to pain
New faith, new worth."
Looking back upon her life, and forward to her home on
high, we remember how she " counted all things but loss
for the excellency- of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our
Lord." The refiner's fire had but purified in the crucible
of flesh the rare metal of her spirit, till it reflected the
image of Him who was her " all in all." Life had been
more bitter than death, and to-day we know she stands
among those of whom the angels said : " These are they
which come out of great tribulation, and have washed their
robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ;
therefore are they before the throne of God and serve
Him day and night in His temple."
Tenderly, on the 7th of December, did her six sons bear
all that was mortal of Eleanor Gillman to the grave's
mouth, and lay it to rest therein in the sure hope of a
blessed Resurrection.
I. G. D. S.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 87

MY FIRST SABBATH SCHOOL CLASS.
I was a girl of fourteen (but quite too tall for forty),
when Mr. S. came to me and asked if I would take charge
of a class in( his Sabbath-school. After some urging I
finally consented, not because I was in any way fitted for
the situation, for I knew better than that. I was not a
Christian, and there was nothing womanly about me save
my extra feet and inches. I was a simple, honest, impul
sive child, with no airs and graces, and this work had come
to my hand to do. Therefore I promised that if Mr. S.
would assume the responsibility of all future failure, I
would do what I could.
On the next Sabbath, two o'clock found me at the 
African church, where, drifting with the tide of scholars
and teachers, I entered a dirty, dark, long, low-ceilinged
room (underneath the church), which was used during the
week as a colored school ; and from its general air, odor and
untidiness, did not seem ever to have enjoyed ventilation
or the benefits of a broom. The seats were hacked and
bumped and broken — even the very floor was as full of
ups and downs as some people's lives, and the walls a mys
tery that to this day I have not solved. Whether it was
dampness, or dirt, or the contact of woolly heads, or a
chronic kind of colored mouldiness, or a variety of shades
of white, yellow or brown wash, I never knew. Suffice it
that the whole place was inexpressibly dreary, forsaken and
forlorn. In point of discipline, the school really did not
seem to have any — everything went, in Yankee parlance,
"higgledy-piggledy." There were complexions of every
color, from a coal black to a morbid yellow, and all ages,
from the old grandfather of eighty to the baby of a few

88 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
months. In the way of discipline, Brother M  , who
was not only the clergyman oh Sabbath, bnt the school
teacher during the week, would remorselessly kick the
urchins' shins, or seize two woolly heads and bump them
together or against the seats with a thundering thud, and
no child ever cried or resented this extraordinary Sunday
exercise. I saw in five minutes that I had put my hand to
a plow whose furrows must go through stubborn, strong,
uneven soil enough before I was done with it, yet it never
occurred to me to flinch. I could not but regret the hasty
step taken, but that was all there was of it. A conscript in
" the army of the Lord," I must fight like the most earnest
volunteer of them all.
A quarter of an hour I spent seated quietly on a side
bench, watching Mr. S., the superintendent, and Brother
M  , the colored preacher, trying to bring some sort of
order out of the chaos that surrounded them, during which
time a chapter was read, a prayer offered, and a hymn sung.
Then my friend came to me with a word of most cordial
welcome, expressing the hope that I was " pleased with the
appearance of the school," and finished by leading me up
and introducing me to what he smilingly called "your
class." Before me, on a straight-backed bench, sat six large, stout
women, whose ages, as near as one could reckon (for col
ored people), ranged from forty-eight to eighteen years.
My young heart rather sprang into my mouth at this sight,
but I bowed as easily as I could and took the chair handed
me by the superintendent. Before he left us I asked,
" Who has been their teacher before ? " and received the
answer, "Well, sometimes one and sometimes another."
After that I thought it would be quite as well to examine

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 89
the individual appearance of my class before making any
further demonstration.
The first person on the bench was a very black, thick,
rough-skinned woman, with a straight nose, yellow teeth,
a cold, stern eye,, the white of which was bloodshot, and not
the ordinary African feature; strong, thin, bony hands,
bleached by labor. She was from forty-five to forty-eight
years old ; her clothes were respectable and decent, her
demeanor forbidding and repellant. She looked at me as
much as to say, " See here, you young slip of a thing, if
you are coming here to teach, teach you shall. My Sun
days are my own, and if I choose to spend them learning
to read, I will have no fooling. I will see to yon, my
young Miss, and keep you up to time, you may depend
upon that." And I did depend upon that. I taught her
patiently for almost two years, and never drew from her
the slightest manifestation of approval. I cannot say I
liked her, yet I could never say I disliked her, I feared
her as one might some strong-willed Mentor, but I taught
my best for her. I helped her to help herself through the
puzzling words, and she was an apt and faithful scholar.
I found her name was Jane, and that was enough to know.
Her companion on the left was a perfect contrast to Jane,
for she had a skin as soft and smooth as a baby's, and as
bright and brown and shining as a coffee berry fresh from
the burner. Her nose was broad and flat, and every trait
of her face that of the pleasantest type of negroes. She
was good natured and kindly, always had a smile for me,
and her white teeth beamed out light from a dark cloud.
She was not quick to learn, but her hearty, agreeable man
ner made her a pleasant pupil. Always before the lesson
began she would perch an immense pair of silver-bowed
spectacles upon the broad bridge of her nose, heave a great
12

90 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
sigh, give an encouraging little nod, and go at a word as if
it was the purpose of her life to spell it right. I never
knew this woman's name, and she was therefore distin
guished as the woman with the silver spectacles.
Then there came two 'other indifferent sort of creatures
that I never knew apart. They were seldom both present
at one time, and I could not tell which was absent. They
came because it was the fashion to come. They picked up
a letter here and a word there, but I fancy they were rather
negative characters. I did my best for them, but what it
amounted to at this day I cannot say. The fifth and last
in the class was a most beautiful girl of eighteen or twenty.
Her complexion was that rich, creamy yellow, through
which shone flashes of rosy color, as if some magic lamp
made lambent this rare but exquisite tint. So nearly white
was she that, with a girlish love of romance, I called her
Rebecca (after the lovely Jewess in Ivanhoe), and she
answered to the name as kindly as if it had been given to
her by her sponsors in baptism. She was not intellectual
(although the extreme beauty of her face led one to think
and believe she must be so), and many a time I have heard
her spell, " W-w-w-w-o-o-o-r-r-r-l-l-l-d-d-d, w-o-r-l-d — right
eousness." I could never begin to recall or recount the absurd errors
and blunders of the sort that were perpetually taking place
in the class. There is no royal road to learning, but I am
afraid I conducted these poor souls over the hardest kind of
corduroy with my primitive instructions. During all the
term of my teaching them I never saw the slightest visible
improvement, unless it was that they miscalled letters a
little less often. A sharp attack of illness reduced me to
that pass that I was obliged to resign my class, but I took
care that it fell into good hands before I was sent away to

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 91
school at the sea-side, and for two years heard no more of
my five scholars. The friend in whose charge I left them
was taken sick, and she transferred them to her sister, who
in the course of time made them over to some one who was
a total stranger. The unanimous report was, we have done
the best we could, and we cannot see that they have made
the slightest advancement.
Years passed on. I married, and soon found my hands
full of a different kind of teaching. As my children
grew older, I often told them of the poor colored women,
who were so anxious to learn when they were old,, and it
was so hard for them that I thought they never had learned.
It was full twenty years after I commenced my colored
instructions, when one morning, in the absence of the
housemaid, I was dusting the parlor, and flung up the
window sash to shake out my dusty silk handkerchief and
let the warmth of the fresh May morning into the room.
The noise caused a woman passing to look up. " Why,' '
said she, "good morning, Missis; how be you?" " Yery
well, I thank you ; I hope you are enjoying the same bless
ing." "Well, yes," said she, "I'm pretty tough; workin'
hard seems to agree with me. I guess, Missis, you've
forgot who I be?" There was nothing left for me but to
confess the fact. Where had I seen her and known her ?
"Why, law, you was my Sunday school teacher, when you
was a young bit of a thing, and you taught me to read." I
threw up my hands in astonishment, and begged her to
come in and tell me something of my old class. She
accepted the invitation and sat down, looking pleased and
happy as her memory fled back over the twenty years that
had passed. The first person I asked for was Jane, for the
woman had a kind of fascination to me ; where was she ?
" Oh sakes," said she, " Jane's dead ; she's been dead this

92 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
tree year. She was an awful hard working woman, and she
just worked 'herself clean to death. She always said she
would give her children good educations, and she did ; she
sent her daughter to Oberlin, and she's done fust rate.
Oh," she went on, "Jane was most a beautiful reader — if
you could a heard her read the Testament, you' d a been
glad you teached her. When there was sickness , and death
'round, Jane never spared herself, and she was powerful in
prayer. I never see but just one such woman, and that was
Jane. And oh, she died so peaceable and happy, it was a
blessed thing to see her. So you never heered Jane was
dead ? Why, Missis, we always knowed all about you ; we
knowed who was a waitin' on you when you come to be a
young lady, and when you got married. Jane said you'd
married a first class gentleman. She know'd all his folks
down in New York State, and all about them, and she
tho't you'd done well. She said, she was real glad. There
was one spell there when we used to see you out in the car
riage with that oldest boy of yourn, and I felt sure you
was a-goin' to die. So I says to Jane, ' Long ago she was a
slim thing with a cough, and I guess she's gone' into a
declined now.' But Jane said, 'No, not a bit of it; her
eyes look lively yit, and she always was mighty parseverin';
she'll get right along. She ain' t one of the kind to die if
she's got a baby to take care of ; you see she'll stay and
tend to that fust — I know her.' But the tears corned into
Jane's eyes, and says she, ' May the Lord bless and keep
her, and make her faithful to the end.' Jane wasn't much
of a talker, but what she said she meant, and maybe a
black woman's prayer is as good as a white one's. When
we see the carriage a gettin' fuller and fuller of little chil
dren, I thought Jane was about right, and yon wouldn't git

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 93
much of a chance to die at that rate ; and, Missis, you be a
real stoutish looking woman, now that's a fact."
I laughed, though my eyes were brimful, and acknowl
edged the compliment. And then went on to ask after
Rebecca. " Well, now," said she, " she went to the bad long ago ;
there was no stoppin' her. Jane and I, we went to see her,
and Jane she talked to her, but it wa'nt no use; she'd
made up her mind to go, and so Jane said, ' You'd just got
to let her.' Two of her children died of watered brains,
and she got consumpted and dropped right off. Missis, she
wa'nt a good, healthy color, though we all knowed you
thought her extra."
"And now," I said, " what ever became of the woman
with the silver spectacles ? "
" Who ever ! " said she, and thrusting her hand in her
pocket, drew out and mounted on her nose the identical
silver bows. In an instant there she sat, not a day older
than she had seemed a score of years before. " So you
didn't know me. Well, well, that is funny." And she
indulged in the heartiest laugh possible ; the very baby
that had crept into my lap during the conversation joined
in it.
" Oh," I said, " I am so glad it is you. Now tell me
about yourself. Did you ever learn to read ? "
" Oh, of course I did ; you taught me that, tho' I never
was no sich reader as Jane. But I've read my Testament
so that a good deal of it comes mighty easy now. Oh,
nobody don't know what a comfort it is after you've done
a hard day's washin', to sit down and read a half a dozen
verses or a chapter. I thought I was a pretty old woman
when I began to learn to read, and it took me a sight of
time to find out when I was right or wrong in miscallin' a

94 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
word, but I know now. I can't read the papers so well as
I can the Testament, and I don't try much ; I've done a
sight of work in my time, but," said she, dropping her
voice, "Missis, I've got so I can write some."
" Have you, indeed ! " I exclaimed. " I am very glad.
Will you write something for me ? "
" Oh, yes, to be sure." And then she told me of their
church and of a festival it was to have, and a great deal
more that I found myself very much interested in ; and
after she left me I went about my daily tasks with the
fresh, sunny, hopeful vigor of twenty years before.
About a week after seeing my old friend in the silver
spectacles, a couple of inch-wide slips of paper, rolled in
little tight rolls, were handed in at the door, and on my
return from a drive the servant brought them to me with
out a word of explanation or comment. I undid them, and
found they were cut from the blank leaf of an old copy
book. On one was written, in a trembling, though plain,
hand, " In my Father's house are many mansions ; I go to
prepare a place for you."
On the other :
" We ought always to labor and not faint."
And below :
"Pies excus fur I bin washin'. S. S."
The true reading of the verse is pray. But had not her
daily toil been a perpetual prayer ? Had not the incense of
her patient, faithful service ascended to the throne of God ?
She had but scant time to frame elaborate petitions ;
enough for her that over her wash-tub her labor had been
" as to the Lord," and that He who searcheth the heart
knew better than she could tell Him how genuine were
longings to be " instant, in season and out of season, serv
ing the Lord."

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 95
Rich, faithful heart ! warm, glowing soul ! Poor, plod
ding creature though she seemed, she could read and write
the blessed promises, and my spirit rose in thanksgiving to
our heavenly Father for having let me see for myself the
full blessedness of the command and promise which I
wrote below the poor, or rather rich (for had she not the
full assurance of faith ?) washerwoman's name : " Cast thy
bread upon the waters, and after many days it will return
to thee again."

WHO CAN PROTECT THE CHILDREN ?
We answer, promptly, our legislators — and they alone.
We wish the gentlemen who make our laws would sit
through a single Reference Committee meeting with us.
It may be, their conscience would waken a little from the
hopeless lethargy into which they have fallen as regards
their duty to the helpless children. The theory of life is
that parents love their children, but when drink takes pos
session of man or woman, the victim, the innocent, helpless
victim of the demon of intemperance is invariably his or
her child. We have known babies starved to death by a
drunken mother's feeding them with whisky till their poor
little brains were burned up. Broken heads or legs, or
arms, are an everyday occurrence ; broken backs happen
more frequently than people in general suppose. Some
times a desperate woman in fear of being killed outright,
and illustrating on her bruised and discolored face and per
son the force of Sam Slick's aphorism, " There is a sight of
wear in human nature," presents herself at the Home, chil
dren and all. We take her in, of course — nurse her often
times through a run of fever consequent upon her bruises
— and more than once have seen the father, better say the

96 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
master, of this miserable family march them back to the
bare walls and broken old stove that constitutes their home.
The Reference Committee have, at present, the two follow
ing cases before them, and we commend them to the
perusal of every man who, by his presence or his vote, can
influence the making or unmaking of a law.
Mrs. H  , a pretty -looking young woman, with her
young babe in her arms, came to Detroit in 1866 ; said her
husband was in the State Prison in Cleveland, and told a
long story of destitution and wretchedness ; she had a
mother and one or two young sisters. This woman was
helped, as was her mother, by nearly every prominent
church in the city, individuals innumerable aided her
largely, the poormaster fairly kept her on his books to save
the perpetual repetition of the story (that no one believed)
of her wasteful extravagance in the use of food, wood, etc.
In time her health failed and she was sent to Harper5 s Hos
pital, and this summer, within a few weeks past, died of
consumption at St. Luke's. The husband served his time
out in the Cleveland prison, came to Detroit, and is now
sentenced for a term of years to the Michigan State Prison.
This convict, this felon, this depraved and debauched
creature now confides his two children to a young woman
utterly unfitted by her past or present life to bring them
up with any regard to principle, and we women who could
put these little ones into good homes where they would be
surrounded by good and wholesome influences, must stand
still and see them grow to womanhood in the pestilent ,dens
of the city because there is no law for such a case. " The
law presupposes mutual affection and regard between
parent and child." " The law considers that the parent has
the first right to his child." Are not the laws of morality
a thousand times higher than any claim based upon blood ?

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 97
Because a man's wife has borne him a child does this fact
alone endow him with the right to make the little creature
his slave in perpetuity ? Does it give him the right to
breed up a wretched, debauched, depraved, distorted,
demoralized troop of children that, because they are his, he
can order according to his hideous will and make in the end
but leprous blotches in the lowest stratum of the social
world, contaminating, it may be, the children of good men
and women ?
We do not deny that there is erime enough, and to
spare, in the world; but we deny the right of any man or
woman to bring a child up to a life of crime ; and we claim
that our lawmakers owe it to society that all helpless
human beings should be protected from the misrule of a
flagrant criminal.
The second case is somewhat different, but far more
common. A woman with five children, the oldest but nine years
of age. She is a respectable, industrious, broken-spirited
creature who clings with desperation to her children and
her home. The father drinks, drinks constantly, drinks till
he is wild with the delirium tremens, and sells all he can
lay his hands on, while they starve and perish with cold and
hunger and dismay. The mother sees that living in this
pandemonium will destroy the morals of her little family in
a year or two more, and so she brings them to the Home,
and there she sits in dumb despair and weeps and moans,
and realizes every hour how helpless she is, how insufficient
her scanty earnings are to gain them a roof and bread,
How quickly her husband would walk into any little rest
ing place she might make for herself and claim his right to
occupy and destroy it.

98 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
" Ginx's baby was not an ill-favored child. He had
inherited his father's frame and strength ; these helped
him through the changes we are relating. What if these
capacities had by simple, nourishing food, cleanly care-
taking, and kindlier associations been trained into full
working order ? Left alone or ill tended they were daily
dwindling, and the depression was going on, not solely at
the expense of little Ginx, but of the whole community.
To reduce his strength (moral or physical) one-half, was to
reduce one-half his chances of independence, and to mul
tiply the prospect of his continuous application for
State aid.
" Every day through this wealthy country there are men
and women busy marring the little images of God that are
by-and-by to be part of its public, shadowing young spirits,
repressing their energy, sapping their vigor, or, failing to
make it up, corrupting their nature by foul associations,
moral and physical. Some are doing it by special license
of the devil, others by act of Parliaments
Clear the board, gentlemen. (Amen ! ! !) True regen
erative legislation will begin by drawing away the rubbish.
Reform, means more than repair. Mend, patch, take down
a little here, prop up some tottering nuisance there, fill
in gaping chinks with patent legislative cement, coat old
facades with bright paint, hide decay beneath a gloss of
novelty, decorate, furbish, and after all, your house is not a
new one, but a whited sepulchre shaking to decay.
And Refoem we must have if the coming generation of
the lower classes is not to be the direst curse to this free
country.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 99

DANGEROUS BOOKS.
It is safe to say that more than one-half of the volumes
published in this, or any other country, are open to the
charge of being " dangerous books," and we have, there
fore, no thought of pointing out to our readers those that
are erroneous in their philosophizing, sensational in their
fancies, or heterodox in their teachings. We leave this
work to older and wiser heads than our own. But it has
come to pass within the last few years, that books claim
ing to be both "psychological and physiological" in their
character have been written expressly for the perusal of
women, or have been put forth as a mawkish and beggarly
plea in her behalf. Two or three months ago we chanced
to enter a physician's office just as a book peddler was leav
ing it. There was evident excitement and heat on the part
of both, and words of contempt and disgust had been
bestowed upon the unfortunate individual who had only
expected encouragement and patronage in the sale of a
book, the title of which we forbear to give here or else
where. We would not advertise, for any pecuniary com
pensation, anything of the kind, and we will not allow
ourselves, in trying to point out its dangerous teachings, to
even name it, although it is counted the very best of its
kind. Suffice it to say, our medical friend handed us the
advertisement of the work in question. We glanced over
it, and saw a very fair and plausible statement of its neces
sity and desirability as a guide and counselor to both
mother and daughter ; that it was written with great care,
and was thoroughly unobjectionable in all respects. This
was followed by a series of letters from minister after min
ister, in this and other States, giving it their unqualified

100 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
support and recommendation. Foremost among these was
a very reverend (perhaps it would be more truthful if we
said a very irreverend) preacher in New York. Then came
extracts from the comments of "the falsely so-called
religious press;" and on the whole the showing was so
enticing that we were tempted to say : " There are many
books that find their way about among the very best of
women, that are glossed over so as not to exhibit their real
depravity, and are the work of designing and abominable
men ; now, if 'this really is what it claims, it may be just
what is needed." " The table of contents was enough for
me," was the sharp reply, " and no woman could be the
better of the perusal of such sort of stuff ; for a young girl
it can be nothing less than demoralizing."
Some weeks later, the February number of the Louisville
Journal of Medicine was put into our hands, and a caustic,
but none the less just, criticism of this very volume pointed
out. Premising that " if it be a fit work for the women of
this country it ought to be generally and universally known,
but if the contrary, surely the sooner it is understood the
better will it be for the purity and welfare of American
women. That the clergy should recommend this book is
not surprising to any one even superficially conversant with
the relations which the pulpit has long borne to legitimate
medicine. It may well be said that the certificates of the
clergy have long ceased to be worth the pen, ink and paper
used in their preparation. The recommendations, then, of
this work by the clergy, are as natural as they are worth
less ; but it is indeed surprising that medical men should
have followed such an example, and should have given
their testimonials with an equal readiness and precipitancy.
There is but one way of accounting for their course, and
this is by supposing, charitably, that like Charles Lamb,

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 101
they refused to read the work for fear of having tlieir criti
cism in any measure blazed."
We have not come to think so little or so lightly of the
judgment of a minister of the Gospel. He who breaks for
us the bread of life — who is under-shepherd of our blessed
Lord, and to whom we go for counsel in our extremity
when the holy oracles of God are sealed to us — is not to be
lightly esteemed ; and though there are flagrant instances
of ministers who have made their word and their calling a
by-word and a reproach, we thank God that these are the
exception and not the rule among our pastors.
Should one of these have thus abused our confidence and
led us to put a volume so fraught with evil into our daugh
ters' hands, we frankly confess, through God's grace alone
could we have forgiven him, but trusted him again — never.
Such fallibility leads us to see and know that women alone
can judge for women ; a mother's instincts are surer and
truer, and more God-given than any mere opinion of man,
no matter how conspicuous he may be for his liberal views
or his literary attainments. In anything so delicate as the
training of a young girl's mind, no stranger may inter
meddle. Much has been said of what ought and what
ought not to be told to girls, and much reasoning spent,
upon a question that must in the end be resolved by the
temperament, temptations and surroundings of each indi
vidual mother and daughter.
But we agree heartily with a medical writer who, in 1867,
in opposition to the prevailing idea of teaching physiology
to school girls, says: " This -great mystery of womanhood
which lies hidden deep in the heart of every fair ' girl
graduate ' among them, becomes besmirched by vulgar con
tact with the naked facts of her organization. Too often
the pure, high, sensitive soul is shocked by this ruthless

102 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
tearing away of the veil which her own and her compan
ions' ignorance and innocence has woven for her. She
could have ridden naked as Godiva through the world, pro
tected by the radiance born of modest ignorance, and been
as pure as she, when ' clothed upon with chastity.' Yet, if
her own rash curiosity has tempted her to take of that for
bidden fruit ' whose mortal taste brought death into the
world and all our woe,' and she has learned with reckless
daring the knowledge of good and evil, then she turns, not
with modesty to hide herself from the eyes of man, but
with that shame- facedness that springs from guilt, and finds
she knows "Both good and evil ; good lost and evil got ;
Bad fruit of knowledge."
There is tremendous pertinence in the question of the
Lord God to her who was " the general mother of man
kind," as she stood trembling before him in her garment of
leaves : " Who toldest thee thou wert naked ?" With this
fatal knowledge came her curse : " I will greatly multiply
thy sorrow and thy conception — in sorrow thou shalt bring
forth children." For full six thousand years has this
relentless doom been the heritage of every daughter of Eve.
The promise of Jesus, our blessed Lord, " They shall be
saved in child-bearing if they continue in faith and charity
and holiness with sobriety," is the only mitigation of their
misery. Who can account for the mental and spiritual
blindness that has fallen upon the instructors of this land
that they should be wiser than God? Since our first
parents were beguiled from the purity of their first estate,
by a craving for more knowledge than in the infinite wis
dom of their Creator was deemed enough for their happi
ness and purity, there has been the same sad thirst for a
knowledge of evil ; and do our educators so entirely lack

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 103
common sense as to suppose they can say to the grasping,
intelligent, youthful mind, craving to know all the mys
teries of nature, and especially those of their own being,
" thus far shalt thou go and no farther ? "
They have indeed but fitted their pupils to be the ready
prey of the traveling lecturer on " Physiology," and " The
Laws of Health," with its separate classes for the sexes ;
sharpened their wits to appreciate the numerous and
shameless advertisements contained in the daily gazettes or
the books and pamphlets thrown broadcast over the land,
under every specious pretext, yet all with selfish and sinis
ter designs. Who will deny that all these contrivances to
destroy the modesty, aye, the very virtue of our people,
gotten up, as they too often are, under the guise of philan
thropy, are but the outcroppings of a system of education
which, however modestly conducted, has indirectly fostered
the wicked purposes of bad men, who for greed defraud,
deceive and demoralize those whom the system of instruc
tion, approved and adopted among us, has educated to be
their auditors.' '
If, then, a mother by her rare, pure, loving, yet watchful
eyes, has won back for her child — for her daughter — some
thing of the old sweet innocence of a lost Eden, let no
ruthless tempter enter, with his promised gift of knowl
edge, the sacred precincts of a home or a chamber ; let no
book, though it be recommended by a hundred clergymen
and fifty doctors, gain admission there. It was ever one of
the wiles of the adversary " to steal the livery of heaven to
serve the devil in ;" and the most adroit thieves are those
whom we trust because they have a Rev. prefixed to their
name. " The girl of the period," we are thankful to say, is not
the representative of more than her class, and up to this

104 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
day that class is small and despicable. Indeed, we have
known the daughters of wicked, and even profligate
women, whose social progress and position was both cor
rupt and corrupting, so guard their children as to keep
them measurably free from the taint of impurity which had
tarnished their own lives. Yet, we have known other
mothers negatively good, but positively weak, vain, indo
lent, frivolous beings, who sought and desired for their
daughters all the worldliness, the dress, the fashion, the
ball, and last, but not least, the lascivious " round dances"
that mark this present as a rapidly progressive period of
evil. Such are the daughters who come to be the "girls
of the period," who debase tlieir sex; and the sweet and
redolent aroma of youth, which is in itself a great beauty,
becomes in them a thousand times more frightful (to
thoughtful minds) than the deepest wrinkles of even
worldly old age. Already the public dancing schools of
this, as well as other cities, are disgraced by the most flag
rant exhibitions of habits of intemperance, not confined,
alas, to the use of intoxicating drinks. Young girls are
sent to such places with no protector whatever, no chap
eron ; and the mothers, finding such hotbeds of vice have
produced their legitimate effects, and are corrupting body
as well as soul, turn to books like the one we have before
us, to warn them of the dangers of the dance.
Faugh ! all this is but adding fuel to the flame, and what
is now a small but conspicuous class will recruit its ranks
from the daughters of every household of the land ere
another generation has passed away.
The Bible holds for us a whole compendium of " psy
chology and physiology," and the laws which were given
by inspiration of God to Moses were, and are, sufficient for
the whole human family, and need only the exponent of

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 105
common sense to furnish a woman with what knowledge
may be good for her. It is possible there would be less
suffering and death among our sex if those Old Testament
laws were more rigidly observed.
Tennyson, in his Lucretius, points a moral the most will
fully blind dare not overlook, and teaches us with gentle,
yet persistent force, that the love worth having and worth
holding can be held alone by pure and holy virtue, outside,
above, beyond the flesh.
It is not good or seemly that a woman measure herself
intellectually with a man. The late Mrs. Percy B. Shelley
said, with a pathetic, yet proud, humility : " In short, my
belief is, whether there be sex in souls or not, that the sex
of our material mechanism makes us quite different creat
ures, better, though weaker, but wanting in the higher
grades of intellect."
She knew, as we all ought to know, that a woman's
power is her moral power in her family (and the family
is but the integer of that society we call the world) ; she
is a conservator ; it is she who trains her sons to truth,
integrity, courage, honor ; her daughters to purity, self-
abnegation,, patience, stability, and holy living, and for this
she is content with that simple way of God in which the
simplest need not err. She needs no extraneous aids
addressed specifically to her sex. We confess' frankly we
have not read the book upon which we feel free to com
ment so indignantly, but we have read, as far as we could
with anything like toleration, the table and extracts given
as samples of its contents. We have read this that we
might warn first, those of our readers who are mothers,
not to admit this pestiferously suggestive volume to their
homes ; and/ last, that we might say to the hundreds of fair
13

106 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
young" girls who, we are told, seize the little Messenger
and read it through and through the moment it is dis
tributed in town or village — whose loving hearts and help
ful hands are always ready to accept and aid our suffering
children — look well, oh, young daughters ! to your walk,
conversation and reading ; let the great mystery of woman
hood be a sealed volume to you, remembering that some
wily serpent of a book might tempt you to grow wise as
Eve, and with such wisdom fall from your first estate of
innocence. Be then ever on the watch to keep unspotted
from the world, content to know and think less of your
selves than of others, not curious or prying, lest you lose
the bloom of heart and soul that makes you fresh and fair
to all the world, and all the world so fresh and fair to you.

An article published by Mrs. Stewart in the Home Messenger for
April last, entitled "Who are the Poor of the Church of
Christ ? " is so suggestive of the gentle delicacy with which she
was wont to "investigate" individual cases of "the poor," and so
Christ-like in the proposed method of dealing with such cases, that we
are sure it may be read over again with profit.
When our Lord, who had taught His disciples by precept
and example to have compassion on the poor, to feed the
multitude, to show by their deeds the principles that
influenced tlieir walk, they were not (being men) broad
enough to take in the act of worship that involved a lavish
" waste " of money in the breaking of the alabaster box.
There are times — and they come oftener than we are aware
— when it is well " not to withhold thy hand." Nothing is
so fatally narrowing to Christian love — nay, even Christian
character —as " investigation," especially where it is made
in the spirit of distrust. Not that we would counsel indis-

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 107
criminate charity, which usually gives its award to the most
dramatic and unworthy, but ever let judgment lean to
Mercy's side — " hope that a woman is reasonably innocent
until the facts prove her guilty of something," — and, even
then, put yourself in her place and realize who it is that
" maketli thee to differ." The old law of Moses, which
was premised by a whereas, i. e., " For the poor shall never
cease out of the land, therefore, I command thee, open
thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy
needy in the land." Does Moses say the good poor ? Did
Christ " investigate " the five thousand to see how many
were " worthy ? " The disciples and the Master knew that
the loaves and fishes were a great attraction to these aim
less, shiftless, floating folk ; only one boy had even a lunch
with him, but he had come provided " to follow Jesus ;"
perhaps to offer his simple portion to his Lord. The unwit
ting disciples began at once to count what it would cost to
find enough for so many hungry folk to eat, but the Lord
made the five loaves (i. e., biscuits) and the two fishes (i. e.,
herring) feed this goodly company and leave twelve baskets
full (" one apiece for each reluctant disciple.") Some years
ago our neighbor, an Episcopal clergyman, whose giving
was wildly indiscriminate, was softly counseled by his war
den to be more cautious. " No ! " he burst out, " no, I will
give first and examine afterwards. I will not be reasoned
or juggled out of my Christian right and privilege. Christ
said : ' Ye have the poor with you always,' and ' whensoever
ye will ye may do them good ! ' No, sir ; I will not cross-
question and wound and insult, by implication, if no other
way, a poor creature who sees in me a follower of Christ."
" The true currency of beneficence, in which our debts to
God's needy ones are to be paid, is not money, but love.

108 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
This is an old truth." And yet there are still some Chris
tians who think to discharge their debts by gifts of money
merely, and others who, because they can give no money,
imagine that they have no debts to discharge. If the
choice must be made, love without money would be a truer
Christian gift than money without love.
Said a clergyman whose avenue church is very near a
" Five Points " quarter of Detroit : " There must be some
thing radically wrong with the church when the poor will
not enter our doors. We must be too prosperous and crit
ical, or they might trust us ; we baptize their living and
bury tlieir dead, but they say : ' You don't want us ; ' and I
fear we do not want them as we ought." " And they began
to say unto him, one by one, Is it I ; Lord, is it I ?"

CHARLES DICKENS.
From the Messenger of July, 1870.
So much has been said in eulogy of Charles Dickens that
it seems like presumption for this little sheet to utter a
word more upon the genius of this great man, and yet it
has not been our good fortune to see the key-note of his
character as a writer fairly struck. Here and there it is
hinted at, but what eulogist has yet told us that Charles
Dickens had a far wider influence as a philanthropist than
Howard? Who has said that after his first successful
fiction, when he had gained the public heart and confi
dence, he spent the remainder of his life in setting before
his readers the wrongs which abounded in cheap Yorkshire
schools, English work-houses, debtors' prisons, the court of
chancery, etc. ? He made patent the hard, brave struggle
of Trotty Veck, or Cratchit Senior, or the Pegottys, and a
hundred more, to be honest, true, independent men and

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 109
women. He showed us what heroes there were among
these " common people ; " he forced us to say to our own
hearts, " Would you have come through such fiery ordeals
unscathed?" This man compelled us to give to every beg
gar in the street a chance to earn our respect. With Oliver
Twist, and Smike, and poor Joe before us, which of us
dared to call the veriest gamin common. or unclean ?
Thirty years ago we knew a wise, pure, high-toned gen
tleman — a minister of the gospel — who for a quarter of a
century had set his face like a flint against fiction in all its
seductive forms, take up Oliver Twist. Young as we were
then we watched him, night after night, poring over the
social wrongs of the poor — saw how humid grew the great
brown eyes, that always had for us a fascination outside and
beyond the love we bore him — knew from the drop of his
head, the resting, to take in the full scope of the pitiful
tale, that it was the truth of Charles Dickens' faithful pen
that forced him, " malgre lui" to pause and ponder over
wrongs and suffering which each and every one of us should
strive to heal. Little child as the writer was, she neverthe
less took up the volume and struggled through it patiently,
perseveringly, and when it was laid down, carried its mem
ories with her into the silent woods or by the swift-flowing
river, until the suffering of the book became so tangible,
and the principles of duty to our fellows so real, that from
thenceforth we " did what we could " — very, very little it
is true — one poor, forlorn talent bringing in its low rate of
interest ; but under God that interest was due to Charles
Dickens. The pebble cast into the lake spreads ever a wid
ening circle, and the first fruits of the efforts resulting from
our reading Oliver Twist in 1840, came to us in a message
from a poor young soldier, dying in hospital of consump
tion, resulting from exposure during the battles of 1864 :

110 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
"Tell Mrs.  that it's Pat  whom she nursed
through the measles and inflammation of the lungs twenty-
four years ago, and he wants to get out of this and go home
to his mother to die ; and she'll git the lave, never fear."
He was indeed the earliest patient that we ever had, and
whether God and humanity would have led us to care for
him, had not Charles Dickens pointed the way, we cannot
say. Since then book after book of his master mind has come
from the press only to strengthen and deepen the impres
sions of our childhood, and hold us the more steadily to
our vows. With all his persistent setting forth of the
misery of the poor and downtrodden, his caustic pen never
failed to point out how futile was all philanthropic effort
without the balance-wheel of common sense. Mrs. Jelleby
stands out as a warning to all women possessed of a mis
guided enthusiasm. After seeing Mr. Jelleby' s head laid
so pathetically against the cold, untidy wall, and hearing
Peepie and her three brothers bump their way down those
dirty stairs, and taking in the misery of that poor, neglected
girl, who wrote the letters of invitation to the Booriboo-
lagah sewing circle, what mother witli a heart in her bosom
could ever be " a society woman ? " Or, emulate the exam
ple of that " I turn the crank of the universe " female, in
Bleak House, who brought up her sons to "give to the
missionaries " in a manner calculated to develop in those
wretched little prigs the most contemptible form of purse-
proud egotism and self-righteousness. No one so heartily
detested shams as Charles Dickens. Selfishness and shams
would make his pen fairly dance over the paper with con
tempt and disgust. We often wondered that his clergymen
were such wretched caricatures, and why he never painted
" a genuine minister of the gospel," and could only account

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. Ill
for it upon the supposition that the narrow sects and secta
rian views of some clergymen alone furnished the models
from which his too faithful pencil drew.
Mr. Dickens, we doubt not, was a power for helpful good
to his fellow-creatures. It may be that few have traced
back to its source the motive force that has actuated and
' stimulated their benevolence either in the active work of
caring for the poor and suffering, or the more passive form
of contributing money that others might extend their mer
ciful ministrations over a wider field ; but in our own case,
and we doubt not we represent that of thousands and tens
of thousands of others, it was Mr. Dickens' genuine love
for humanity which so intensified and ennobled his genius.
In Mr. Dickens' death the poor have lost a friend, the
oppressed a faithful defender ; the struggling and laborious
workman, an artist whose picture gave always a glow of
honor to those unsung martyrs; the felon or the spend
thrift, a forgiving and merciful creditor ; the present gen
eration, a " preacher who led them with goads and with
nails;" all suffering humanity an advocate; all loving,
single-minded souls, with self-abnegation enough to devote
their lives to some tiny cripple or aged parent, a champion.
He was the intellectual Quixotte of this or any age. God
grant that the English tongue may never lose this record of
how poor dying Joe followed, word after word, of his
friend's " ' Our Father which art in Heaven ' — 'Is the
light a comin', sir ? ' ' It is close at hand ' — ' Hallowed be
Thy name ' — ' Hallowed be Thy '  .
" The light is come upon the dark benighted way — Dead.
" Dead, your majesty. Dead, my lord and gentleman.
Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every
order. Dead, men and women, born with heavenly com
passion in your hearts, and dying thus abound us eveey

112 MRS. MORSE STEWART.

The following correspondence of the Woman's Christian Association, taken from
a paper prepared by Mrs. Stewart for the April number of the Messenger, 1888, is
reproduced, for the word-painting so characteristic of her writings, as well as the
touching pathos of the story it unfolds :
A LONELY OLD MAN.
Women's Christian Association Letters. ,
Detroit, October 18, 1884.
Dear Mrs. A  : * * * All our preparations are
made for going South. It has seemed to me the way the Lord has
opened for us, but I am very sorry to leave poor old Mr. C. He is a
lone old gentleman who some years ago lost his fortune in Kansas City.
He came to me as a boarder five years ago, but of late years has paid
little, if anything. I do not know how he will get on without us. I am
aware, dear Mrs.  , that your hands are very full, but sometimes,
perhaps, you can look after him a little, for he is "one of God's little
ones." E. P.
To Mrs. E. P.: -November 1, 1884.
It's a comfort to believe poor old Mr. C. is one of God's little ones,
for that insures his being taken care of — but, not by me. A host of neg
lected duties warn me that, as far as I am concerned, Mr. C. must be " a
lost opportunity." B. S.
To Mrs. B. 8. : December 3d, 1884.
Dear Friend — I went to see how old Mr. C. was doing. It's bad
enough. Don't you know some one near See street who could send him
a dinner occasionally ? Mart D.
Mrs. B. 8. to Mrs. K. B., 74- See Street:
I know, dear Mrs. B., that you will waive ceremony — a call, and all
that— and let me ask you by postal to pay a little visit to old Mr. P. C,
who lives across the square from you, and send him a meal now and
again. Mrs. D. will show you the place. B. S.
To Mrs. B. 8.: Detroit, March 3, 1885.
Dear Friend— Old Mr. C. went out to-day and fell down in a fit, and
they brought him to my house. Now, I am "the Widow D.," and I
won't have any policemen bringing a man in a fit to my house. Do
please come over and do something about it, for he is here yet. Mart D.

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 113
To Mrs. B. S.: March 4, 1885.
Dear Friend— After what you said to the police they took Mr. C. to
St. Mary's. I have been to see him. He is in a very bad way.
Mart D.
To Mrs. B. S.: Detroit, April 1, 1885.
Dear Friend — The poormaster says he cannot keep Mr. C. any
longer at the hospital ; he must be sent to the County House. Sorry you
are not at home ; have left you a pile of old letters we found in his
trunk. Now you write a letter to every one of tJiem ; maybe some one
of them will help him. Mart D.
Mrs. B. 8. to Mrs. Mary D.:
Dear Sister D. — I wrote fifteen letters — telling the old gentleman's
story fifteen times (nothing monotonous in that); the seven hours had all
the inspiration of a crazy quilt ; his youngest epistle was ten years old !
Think of drawing a bow at a venture and shooting fifteen venturesome
arrows into the postoffice. Now do not ask me to do another thing. B. S.
Sister D. — Those everlasting letters have been coming back with
" No such person," '* Dead," " Gone," " Uncalled for " on them, until I
am ashamed to meet the postman, who looks at me as if I were on the
verge of lunacy. I have worked! now you pray (!!) that something
may happen. I had no idea that fifteen were so many ; two precincts
yet to hear from. B. S.
April 28, 1885.
Dear Sister D. — Eureka ! One letter struck a cousin ; a good
man, too. Here is his answer, which is business like to the last degree. -
All the same I have thanked God for it, for I did not deserve this much.
Now he must have a treasurer ; I think Mrs. K. will undertake to look
after his accounts and money. B- S.
Mrs. B. S.: Boston, April 25, 1885.
Madam— In reply to your letter of the 23d instant would say, that
Mr. C. left this city 42 years ago and has been here but once since, and
that was many years ago.
He has neither brother nor sister living. Will you kindly inform me
if any provision can be made for him, where he can be made comfort
able, in some institution in your city, and the expense per week, and
oblige Yours respectfully, M. C. W., Boston.

114 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Mrs. B. 8.: Boston, May 6, 1885.
Madam— Yours of the 2d inst. is received, and in reply would ask if
you will kindly make such provision for Mr. C. at the St. Luke's Hos
pital and Home, or elsewhere, as you may be able, and for the present I
will pay his board. I enclose draft on New York, payable to your
order, for ($50) fifty dollars, and when this is expended please notify me.
In the meantime, if you will please ascertain what the expense will be for
a life membership in the Home, and notify me, I shall feel obliged, and
shall be guided largely by what you may advise regarding future action.
Should you receive any response from parties to whom you have written
in New York, please accept whatever they may be disposed to send.
Regarding your inquiry, would say that the last time I saw Mr. C 
was some thirty years ago or more, when he was passing through this
city. Yours Respectfully,
M. C. W.
Mr. M. ft W., Boston, Mass.: Detroit, May 11, 1885.
Dear Sir — At last we have found a poor widow — a good woman —
who will take care of Mr. C. His troubles seem to overwhelm him at
times, and then he grows demented. He falls down in the street, and a
policeman takes him in hand and does not know what to do with him.
There is no mistaking his being a gentleman (we keep him respectably
clothed); he " does not drink," etc., etc., etc., and so he is an anomaly
at the Central Station. I am waiting to get some answers to my applica
tion to St. Luke's and Harper Hospitals. Thanks for the cash enclos
ure ; that simplifies the difficulty somewhat. We know nothing of his
history. Mrs. P., with whom he lived five years, said he was "one of
God's little ones ; " this, together with my own conscience, and an
importunate fellow worker's keeping it awake, makes me in earnest to do
what I can. B. S.
Mrs. B. 8.: Boston, May 19, 1885.
Dear Madam — Replying to your letter of the 11th instant, would
say, in reference to Mr. C, that when he was a resident of this city he
was a member of the Baldwin Place Baptist Church and a teacher in the
Sabbath School. He was intelligent, reliable, virtuous, and of a most
amiable disposition. While a Clerk in the dry goods business was very
popular, and his popularity continued when engaged in business for him
self. His uncles furnished him with capital, and after a few years he
failed, but not on account of large personal expenses or of inattention to

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 115
business, as never did any man apply himself more closely than did he to
his business. He left the city unexpectedly, and, it being learned that
he was in Chicago, his creditors sent a friend of his there to try and pre
vail on him to return, and he was offered by them a position as clerk
"at a good salary" in two or three first-class houses. But his inability
to pay the creditors (who had been so kind to him) affected him so that
he could not be persuaded to return. After a few years he established
himself in business in K  City, and I have been informed was as pop
ular with the people there as here, and did a large business ; but in the
days of the rebellion (he was a Union man), having an extensive trade
and many creditors outside of K  City "in Rebeldom," who would
not pay, he was again obliged to fail, and left there as he had previously
left here.
Perhaps he may at times have been injudicious in his methods of
business, but he was scrupulously honest, and confided in every one,
and this latter quality may in a measure account for his want of success
as a business man, and when disaster reached him he had not sufficient
moral courage to face his creditors, and so left them, as stated above.
Since, he has clerked it at Red Wing and Cincinnati, and then we heard
that he was in Detroit. He has always been a single man. When in
K  City he_ had an opportunity to marry into a family of consider
able wealth, but fear of embarrassment and consequent inability to sup
port a wife in comfort prevented him.
Mr. C.'s relations are mostly dead, having only a few cousins left.
His age must be about 68.
Referring to remittance to you, would say that your letters and
interest manifested are sufficient warrant to any business man that it
could not be in better hands than your own.
I would gratefully acknowledge your kindness, and that of your
associates, and thank you most sincerely for the interest you have mani
fested and the efforts you have made in behalf of a poor stranger.
What would poor, suffering humanity do if it was not for woman ?
Our Lord, while on earth, honored woman above others, and I some
times think, if there is any distinction made in heaven, woman should
have the most exalted seat, as the sweetest of singers among the angelic

When I learn the cost of a life support from Mr. Eaton, I will write
to parties in New York and see what they will do.
Once more expressing my thanks for your kindness, I remain
Yours respectfully, M. C. W.

116 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Mrs. B. S. to Mr. M. G. W., Boston, Mass. : May 30, 1885.
Dear Sir— * * * Pardon the long delay in answer
ing your letter. Detroit has no old man's home ; the State of Michigan
has none. St. Luke's Hospital will agree to take him for $500, but they
reserve to themselves the right to return him to us with that sum of
money intact should he prove a troublesome patient. Harper Hospital
will bind themselves to care for him for life if you pay $1,000 in
advance. Mr. C. cries and moans, and resists an institution. Shall we
go on ? B. S.
Mrs. B. 8. : New York, June 1, 1885.
Madam — I am in receipt of your favor of April 23d, forwarded me
by Mr. M. C. W., of Boston. In regard to Mr. F. O, I am unable to
advise what to do in his case, and have returned your letters to Boston.
M. C. W. and H. H. are first cousins, while I am a distant relative. I
think they will interest themselves in this matter. I have for years ren
dered assistance to Mr. C. At present, claims from those nearer me are
so pressing I am unable to do what I could wish. Inclosed find my
check for fifty dollars. Respectfully yours,
M. C. W.
Mrs. B. S. : Boston, June 4, 1885.
Dear Madam — Since receiving your last letter I have written to New
York, also sent your letters, and have also seen Mr. H. H. To the latter
I gave your letters, and have received encouragement that he would do
something for Mr. C. I should advise, however, that you do not write
to him for the present. I received a letter yesterday from Mr. Morton
C. W., of New York, in which he stated that himself and brother
Dorman had forwarded to you the sum of fifty dollars.
At present it seems impossible to raise the amount required by the
Harper Hospital, and although I regret placing so much care on your
self and your associates, if you can make permanent arrangements for
one year, on terms that are satisfactory to yourself, I will raise or per
sonally pay the amount necessary for his care for that time.
Replying to your correspondent, would say that Mr. C. has no living
relations on his father's side, to my knowledge. Yours respectfully,
M. C. W.
P. S.— There are but few of the C.'s that are able or willing to assist
him at this time. M. C W

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 117
To Mrs. B. S. : October 5, 1885.
Dear Friend — I send you Mr. C.'s account, with vouchers. I must
say I dread the winter for him. You say Dr.  expressed the opin
ion that the extreme weather we have through January and February
increases his malady. Now the P.'s have gone to St. Augustine, where
they have a comfortable cottage, and as their. daughter May is going
back to them in November, do you not think it would be a good idea to
send Mr. C. on to them? They are willing to take him, and the expense
of the journey can be managed for thirty dollars. Could you not write
and ask Mr. M. C. W. what he thinks about it? K. B.
Mrs. B. S. to Mrs. K. B. : Detroit, October 19, 1885.
Well, my dear, here is your answer. It is reasonable enough. What
next? B. S.
Mrs. B. S. : Boston, October 16, 1885.
Dear Madam — Replying to yours of the 12th instant, I inclose draft
on New York for ($100) one hundred dollars (on the Fourth National
Bank), payable to your order, and which amount you will please apply
toward the support and care of Mr. C. Of the above amount I expect to
receive ($25) twenty-five dollars only from Mr.  on his return from
Maine, and that amount, he says, is all he will contribute, either now or
hereafter. The cousins in New York think that they have all they can
attend to among their own families, and there are none other of his rel
atives who are able or willing to contribute a penny. I am willing to do
what I can (as I have before written you) for Mr. C, but wish his
expenses to be kept as small as possible, and in this connection let me
say that I am not willing to pay the expenses of Mr. C.'s passage to
Florida. I think the sum named by you ($30) can be better expended;
and would, indeed, be quite a help toward supporting him if he remains
in Detroit. He could not be admitted to the " Old Man's Home," in this city, as
the laws regarding this institution require a residence of ten years riext
preceding the application for admission, within the State or city.
Yourself and associates have been very kind in doing as you have for
an entire stranger, but I feel I must trespass still further on your kind
ness, and request that you will try and secure some good place in your
city where Mr. C. can be cared for at a reasonable expense, as heretofore.
Yours respectfully,
M. C. W.

118 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
To Mrs. B. 8. :
Dear Friend— I am sure, in spite of Mr. M. C. W.'s letter, that St.
Augustine, with the P.'s, is the right place for- Mr. C, and I will under
take to raise the $30. What do you say? K. B.
To Mrs. K. B. : Detroit, Nov. 12, 1885.
All right, my dear. If you "see your duty a dead sure thing," we
will do it, for I know Mr. M. C. W. will agree with us afterwards. B. S.
To Mrs. B. 8. : December 8, 1885.
After getting their tickets (M-  paid for hers, but because of her
care of our old gentleman I got both at half rates), and providing them a
long lunch for their three days' journey, the old and young set off
together. Rev. Dr. Henderson brought me from his church five dollars
towards his journey. You know Mr. C. is a Baptist, and I felt at liberty
to ask their assistance. A letter from May reports them safe at home at
St. Augustine. She said Mr. C. made friends all along the way, and
was like a timid child. I am glad we sent him. The P.'s have always
been kind to him, and I am sure they will be now. I pay just the same
board for him there that I did here, and send it every month.
K. B.
P. S. — He had a good outfit of clothes — new underwear, etc. — and I
would have put more than a couple of dollars into his purse if I had not
been afraid he would spend it on patent medicines, and make himself as
ill with them as he did before. * * * * * *
Here the compiler says :
A file of Southern letters has been mislaid, but as they only told how our old
gentleman enjoyed the quaint city, of how good every one was to him in his walks,
of a queer old " Mrs. Nickelby " kind of widow, who nearly, if not quite, proposed
to marry him " because she was so lonesome " and " he was such a gentleman,"
and "real gentlemen were scarce," etc., etc., their omission is of little moment. In
1886 he had a return of his head trouble and grew very odd in his ways, but the P.'s
humored him as much as possible.
Letters from Mr. M. C. W. came two or three times a year, with remittances, and
kind and pleasant words of thankfulness to us.
September 20, 1887, Mr. C. had a low fever set in, of which we notified Mr. M. C.
W., and received the following reply:
Mrs. B. 8. : Boston, October 1, 1887.
Dear Madam— Yours of the 21st ultimo was received in due time,
and in reply I can only repeat what I have so often written before, viz.,

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 119
my thanks to you and your kind and faithful friends for the care shown
Mr. C. in all the time he has been in your charge. I know that
you have not done it for, or in the hope of reward, but I am equally
sure that He who seeth all things, and understandeth all things, will, in
His own good time, give you the reward that is reserved for the faithful.
You speak, or rather Miss Peckham speaks, of having engaged a
young girl to help her in the care of Mr. C, and in this connection
I would suggest that all reasonable expenses of this kind be charged
in my account, when rendered.
Mr. H. died on August 9th, and I have secured a slip from the
Boston Herald of the 10th, which I inclose, thinking it may interest you.
I return the letter of Miss P., and, thanking you for the information
I remain Yours respectfully,
M. C. W.
Mr. C.'s illness terminated on October 12, 1887, in his release from suffering, and
a happy entrance into the celestial city whose inhabitants never more say, "I am
sick." One of his kindest friends was a medical gentleman, whose service was " as unto
the Lord."
From Miss M. P. to Mrs. B. 8. :
Dear Mrs. 8. — It is a hard thing to see even a good old man die,
and I felt too worn out to write you much about Mr. C. at the time.
We are such strangers, as yet, in St. Augustine, and mother and father
being North, I was very thankful to Dr.  , who has been his friend,
as well as physician, for saying to the undertaker that he would see his
bill paid; and settled the account last week. Did I tell you that
Dr.  is a very strong Roman Catholic? When I received your
letter inclosing the draft from Mr. M. C. W., and his beautiful letter,
Dr.  read it over and over, and then laid it down, saying: " Now,
that man is a Christian, and acts like one. When I go to Boston, next
spring, I will call on him and tell him so." It was very kind in him to
send me such a gift. Will you say to him I am very grateful. The
house seems very empty without Mr. C, my old child. Mat P.
THE LAST EPISTLE.
Mr. M. ft W. : December 18, 1887.
Mt Dear Sir — Inclosed please find receipts and vouchers for Mr.
C.'s medicines and funeral charges. His doctor gave his services free
and freely. The balance of the draft was presented to Miss P., in

120 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
accordance with your desire, and so this letter will be the last I shall
address you. Mrs. K. B.'s accounts show that we have disbursed a trifle
over $450 of your money. I was sorry Mr. H.'s heart did not go out to
his old kinsman. Ere this they may have met.
After two years and a half of such pleasant correspondence I am
reluctant to say good bye. We have never seen your face or heard your
voice, and we might pass each other unwittingly in a Boston street, as
folk who had nothing in common, but I am very sure when we stand in
the presence of the King, where we know as we are known, I shall rec
ognize " the old man's friend." Yours, B. S.

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA.

3£i# ^ OMifomia.

A LADY'S DIARY.
April 22, 1872.
My whole winter has been so full of sickness and sorrow,
pain and death, that I have at last made up my mind to
break away from the .cares that here beset me (until body,
mind and heart have got into a rut that is neither comfort
able nor profitable), and hie me to that Golden Land that
for twenty years has been so full of promise and adventure
to hundreds and thousands of imaginations besides my own.
But how to go alone is the grand and anxious question just
now — for if I take my only natural protector, I carry the
saddening assurance that five children will be left "pro
tern." fatherless as well as motherless. Then it is dread
fully unconventional for a woman to set off in this sort of
fashion ; but Bessie K. is wild to go and see her father and
brother in San Francisco, and she says we can protect one
another, so to-morrow I am off. April 23. — To-day Mr. D.,
a brother in fact as well as in law, says if I will wait a week
he will go with me ; but Bessie's heart is broken (and my
trunk packed), our " sections " are secured, and one's hand
is laid to the plow. Mr. D. may as well meet us a week
hence in San Francisco. Two women knight errants need
not the admonition of Hamlet, " Stand not upon the order
of your going, but go at once." Therefore we start to-night,
via the Michigan Central. April 24. — ; Yesterday evening,
when we had got all our hand baggage (and it is unlimited)

122 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
in good order in the Pullman, we found our opposite neigh- '
bor was our dear old friend Fannie E., on her way alone to
see and care for the ill and possibly dying child of Bishop
A., of Milwaukee. Of course she was delighted to meet and
join us, thus relieving us of a certain sense of loneliness and
desolation. At the depot young Mr. H. met and took us
to the Tremont House for breakfast, after which meal we
had two or three hours to spare in driving about Chicago,
seeing the desolation that had overtaken it, and realizing
how powerless was man before the devastating force of any
one of God's elements ; seeing, too, that (Phoenix-like) the
city was again rising from her ashes. At 10 A. m. we saw
Fannie safely started for her short trip, and at 10.30 found
ourselves comfortably settled in our sections. The con
ductor and porter were helpful, and both desirous and
capable of aiding us on our way. "We are to reach Omaha
in twenty-four hours. Our passengers are a motley collec
tion, one old gentleman from Los Angeles ; an Irish M. D.,
who has " been home to the old country to get possession of
a fortune " (and forty canes), whom we have dubbed Dr.
Shillaly, and two Englishmen sitting behind us ; one looks
intelligent and agreeable, the other is too English for any
thing. I am afraid to speak to strangers, it is not safe, though
there is a pleasant looking man near us that I shall apply to
if I need assistance, for his is an unmistakably good face.
I unlocked the wrong hand satchel to-day, and plunged into
an elaborate dressing case and unlimited cigars. Bessie
says that it belongs to the Englishman. I felt like a thief,
and have looked out at Southern Illinois with great interest
ever since (though there was very little to see). The win
dows are open, and the air balmy and delicious. April
25. — Slept after a fashion, and dressed at a disadvantage
that no person half an inch shorter than I can ever appreci-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 123
ate. Not being gregarious in my tastes and habits, the little
wash I indulged in has been very unsatisfactory, but what
can one do when there are a dozen round-eyed men on the
alert in one's vicinity? Dr. Shillaly stood guard, and
escorted us to the dining room car. I heard the pleasant
faced man say that the Presbyterian minister at Salt Lake
was his intimate friend. Bessie and he have had a common
or uncommon meeting ground, for a poor unfortunate
woman stumbled over the Englishman's hat box and lost
her balance and back hair (she just missed breaking her
neck). Bessie and the Presbyterian (I am sure he is a Pres
byterian, his face shows it) rushed to the rescue, and there
was quite a little excitement ; the Johns Bull, or John
Bulls, ignored the scene entirely. We reach Council Bluffs
at 11 A. m., and there change cars to cross the Mississippi
river. 4 p. m. — What a nuisance this crossing and changing
cars is ; everything is as disagreeable as possible ; the train
that we were obliged to enter was full to overflowing, and
but for Dr. Shillaly we would have been obliged to stand up
for an hour and a half. Tom (our Pullman porter), the
Irish M. D., and the Presbyterian, saw us bag and baggage
safe into the Omaha depot, and on board, and established in
the nicest Pullman I ever saw, where there were sofas, and
easy chairs, and ottomans, and comfort, together with a car
full of agreeable, intelligent looking people. I went out
and made my way through* the waiting rooms and lunch
room of the depot ; it is quite wonderful to see the emi
grants (the children absolutely swarm, and their shrieks
were something indescribable); every one seemed good-tem
pered and hopeful. Poor souls, what they suffer for a
home where " they will be de lords of de soil," as Dr. Yan
Raalte used to say. In the lunch room there is no end of
.cooked provisions — cold roast, chickens, boiled ham, legs of

121 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
mutton, and miles of bologna sausages. I saw a German
man marching off with a two-bushel basket full of that kind
of edibles and bread. I could have • spent hours watching
this curious, motley throng, but our baggage is all weighed
at this point, and a charge of fifteen cents for every pound
over one hundred is made. For some reason my trunk was
passed without weighing, but when it came to Bessie's two
a man shouted "scale," and that instrument developed the
fact that the gun she was taking to her brother would cost
her twelve dollars and more. In this room, also, one could
study human nature profitably, if they were not obliged to
go to the other end of the building to get their " receipts
for extra weight" before they check. April 26. — How
curious the life of "the car is, and what a change the fact
we are "in" for four days of each other's society does
make ; every one begins to converse with his or her neigh
bor. There are but few ladies on this car, and the gentle
men go about and make calls on them twice a day, till it
is like a New Year's day. One shrewd, pleasant, plain old
man, who told me he was Mr. M., of Salt Lake City,
called to-day. Whether my face expressed the little chill
I felt at this announcement, I cannot say, but he took
pains to notify me that he was anything but a Mormon ; in
fact I had a long and very agreeable conversation with him
on the subject of that disreputable people. He says some,
indeed many, are honest, fair dealing men, who believe in
their religion ; but there is a large leaven amongst them of
dishonest over-reaching, that in times past has led to theft
and murder. The influx of " good people from the States "
is making a great change, and is a visible restraint. As to
the women, they are just as sincere in their faith and prac
tice as it is possible for women to be ; they are good,
respectable, patient creatures, who dare not call their souls

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 125
their own (as a fractional husband is responsible for that) ;
they are broken-spirited, hard-working, well-behaved mor
tals, deserving* of the ' sympathy of every happier woman
than themselves. In the judgment of Mr. M., " Folks that
are pestered with a sour godliness have no call to come to
Utah ; " the Mormons must see the sweet and comforting
side of one's faith in Christ alone, before they can be won
to consider anytliing but the word and counsels of their own
apostles and bishops. " Ah," said he, " Mrs. S., there are
just two things that will ever uproot Mormonism — one is
the love of God, and the other is the love of dress. If you
have a dress with six skirts, wear it in Salt Lake City ; put
on all the finery that you can, but make yourself look genu
inely tasty ; let your silks drag, and your ruffles flirt, and
your feathers and flowers flutter, and your ribbons fly ;
some woman who is one of seven wives will make it her
business to get up just such a turn-out, cost what it may.
She will coax and tease, and get the dress at any price, and
then, you know how it is yourself ; every woman has got to
have something just as near like it as she can rake and
scrape, and so it will go, for the discontent and the jealousy
must be satisfied in some way ; and so you will do more
towards breaking up a miserable system than if you preached
a thousand sermons. Tell all your friends to wear all their
best clothes, and look as fine and happy as they can." This
struck me as being shrewd common sense, and I grieved
that the only ruffled gown I possessed had been checked
through to San Francisco.
Mr. M. told me I must, by all means, go to the Taber
nacle and the Theater ; in the first place they are taught
religion, in the second, " the manners of society."
April 27. — At Cheyenne, to-day, a number of pleasant
people came on board. Was introduced by Dr. C. to Mr.

126 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
W., a young Philadelphian, who is traveling for his health.
We have some celebrities with us, a minister plenipo
tentiary, also one of the present cabinet. The latter is an
ill-looking man, with an under jaw like a bulldog. Is this
" a great man ? " Would I be willing to point him out to
my children as " a great man ? " If I had my choice I
would rather " roar me a lion that is not Snug the joiner."
All day long we have been crossing these weird, desolate
plains, where " all is sage, and brush and alkali — alkali,
brush and sage." The smooth, calm monotony of steady,
slow going is not, after all, unpleasant ; the endless reach of
sand and sage, even the monotonous roll of low sand hills
here and there, do not seem to vary the stereotyped look of
the landscape. Bessie has read the guide-book for hours,
but I utterly decline to do that. I will see this country
with a mind and spirit fresh for the purpose ; no groove of
other travelers' thoughts shall trammel me in looking at
either landscape or people. I have not read Bowles and
Colfax, et id omne genus, nor do I mean to do so. Has
not one eyes and intelligence wherewith to see and think
for one's self ? No description gives one a true idea of a
region, unless I make honorable exception of Bret Harte, in
Ciceley. That poem penetrates you with a true sense of an
alkali region.
The long row of " towns " that dot the whole length of
this railroad are to me the most sadly amusing of all.
Three shanties and a roofless old shed barn is a town of
some importance ; twelve shanties and a "bakery" entitles
the place to a mayor and common council. I have been
foolish enough to wash often while crossing this portion of
the plains, and the result is my lips are cut and inflamed to
a most uncomfortable degree.
April 28.— We reach Ogden at 4:30 p. m. Quite a party

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 127
change cars there for Salt Lake City, ourselves among the
number. Our friend of the goodly countenance turns out
to be a Presbyterian minister (how true one's instincts are
sometimes) ; he has kindly offered his services in our Salt
Lake detour, as also Mr. W. and Mr. C. ; this latter is a
Bostonian, who came in last night to attend the concert.
We have a melodeon on our car that wheezes and squeaks
as if its lungs had been racked to pieces with much
shaking ; but we got up some first-rate singing. A big man
who had played cards for the last forty-eight hours with
the cabinet minister came to the front on this occasion and
sang " Eock of Ages," with a pathos and enjoyment that
quite inspired me. I said to Mr. M. that " it was a little
surprising." " Not at all, not at all," he replied. " You
see, Mrs. S., after you've lived in this country as long as I
have, you'll come to be pretty broad-gauged in the matter
of religion ; a little goes a great way, and even that is hard
to keep." How I thanked God for the dear old hymns
that made us all one family, and caused one to cling closer
than ever to the " little religion that is hard to keep."
6:30 p. m. — Safe and sound in the center and capital of
Mormonism. All looks serene, so far. At Ogden we were
the only ladies going to Utah, and hence had an escort of
from five to eight gentlemen, each yieing with the other in
showing a watchful but unobtrusive politeness and care for
" the ladies who were alone."
On the restaurant counter of the depot at Ogden I
observed an immense pile (not less than several hundred) of
flasks of whisky ; they struck me as being very suggest
ive ! When Theodore (our porter, a light-colored, smart
mulatto) came to carry off our baggage, he evidently had
something on his mind, but could not quite get it off ; per
haps a liberal fee stimulated his courage, for, with a bow

128 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
worthy of a French courtier or a monkey, he said,
" Madame, I hope you will enjoy Salt Lake City. It is a
good plan when a person starts on a journey like this for
him to decide to leave his politics and religion behind
him," and with this astounding advice he departed. Is the
man, in a measure, right ? Must what principle I have be
so thoroughly unobtrusive ? No aggressive Christian can
do much on the other side of the Kocky Mountains (if he
can anywhere). I have been warned against " a sour god
liness." What next ?
The Mormon Kailroad is " pretty fair," and carried us at
the rate of twenty miles an hour over a level country (not
unlike the Grand Marias), that on this side skirts Salt Lake.
Except for the heavy look of the water, and the genuine
sea smell, one might think it an inland fresh water lake
like our own St. Clair ; but this is, indeed, a sea — a sullen,
waveless sea. To me it looks and seems out of nature,
here, so many thousands of miles away from the Atlantic
and Pacific, for this thing to lie under the shelter of the
great protecting mountains, whose snow-capped summits
make no reflection in its turbid depths, and send forth its
odors of the ocean. It was not like anytliing I had ever
seen before, and awakened no enthusiasm.
In our car we had five of Brigham Young's daughters
and two of his sons. I began at the tip of the feather in
their hats, and took each one in and clinched her in my
memory. Ostrich feathers (genuine), black silk velvet hats,
lace garniture and veils, velvet or cloth jackets, very much
trimmed double skirts, flounces, elaborate ribbon trim
mings, broad neckties, and broader sashes, cloth boots, and
kid or silk gloves. Each girl wore clothes that cost (out
there) at least from $80 to $100. The young men were
well dressed and booted. On the whole, if one has sevenr

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 129
ty-five or a hundred boys and girls to provide for in this
way, it will cost something in cash and taxes, and consider
able in popularity. Every one of these young people had
that same flat, false look that is the characteristic of their
father's face, though some were fair haired, others brown or
black. There was no chatter of girlish talk among them,
though they seemed friendly to each other. After a while
a man came up and spoke to them, and then they were
all in a flutter, and prinked and smiled, and bowed and
bobbed, and looked ready to swallow him. Whatever I
may have to do with my politics and religion, I will take
my womanhood into Utah. I gave them a side look out of
dropped eyelids, and retired into a novel, as if their pro
ceedings had been altogether too much for me, and the
Misses Young were very quick to observe all this and sub
side ; one even blushed. As to the man, when he passed my
seat, I drew in my skirts and watched him anxiously, and
the Misses Young saw this also. 10.30 p. m. — I have been
to the theater, and if what I saw there was the " elevating
influence of the drama," the Mormon will not get very
exalted ideas of anything. The house itself is externally
forlorn, internally, not unlike in plan to the Detroit Opera
House, though on a much smaller scale. We were ushered
into a gallery both low and dark, that did not admit of a
comfortable survey of the house or the people therein, and
were told that this was reserved for the Gentiles. Being
called a Gentile by the Apostle Paul is one thing, but for
that old reprobate, Brigham Young, to set respectable peo
ple apart in that invidious way did not comport with my
views, and I at once expressed my desire to go down stairs
among the Mormons. Mr. H., having some acquaintance
with Mr. S., "a powerful bishop of the church," applied
to him for permission to take his party into the dress circle.

130 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
It was promptly granted, and our location changed ; a bet
ter view of the stage and the house was gained. As this
was the first and only theater I had ever seen, of course I
was curiously observant of both the stage and actors. The
scenery was of the plainest and least tasteful description,
and the stage properties, forlorn and poverty-stricken
enough. Yet the actress was a " star " — Mrs. Bates, rather
a pretty woman. She was supported by a company of raw
recruits from the harems of the various Prophets and Pres
idents of this misguided people. The play was " Camille."
Years ago, when play-goers were more fastidious than at
present, I had read the original French version as it was
brought out on the Parisian stage ; and now I heard it
stripped of all its pretty shades of dainty words, and phrases
— saw it in all the bald badness of a tainted taste — faugh ! I
wish no more such sensational, slippery stuff. On the
right-hand side of the house were seated, in a private sec
tion, a moiety of Brigham Young's wives and families.
Only one woman amongst them had a bright, intelligent
face. Some of his sons were hanging about in the rear of
this party, lounging in and out of the green-room of the
theater, which evidently had a door of communication from
that gallery. At the end of the building was a red-
curtained box, in which President Young sat, and sparsely
scattered through the house were about a hundred young
girls and women, all handsomely dressed. Scarcely any
men were to be seen. Several seats at the side and rear of
us were entirely empty, and the same might have been said
of tliree or fonr in front, save for the presence of a plain-
looking woman directly before me, of perhaps forty years
of age, who wore a last year's bonnet of brown silk,
adorned with a shabby red flower or two. She sat so still
that I absolutely forgot her entirely, and as the play went

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 131
on and Camille described with great fervor the manner in
which she and her Armand would dwell in bliss somewhere
— where she should do her own work — and laid exce ssive
stress upon the fact that lie would be devoted only to her
he would love only her, he would never leave her, etc. — I
turned to Mr. H. and remarked carelessly, " That must be
an edifying scene to the Mormon sisters." In an instant,
like a flash of lightning, the little brown bonnet reversed
its flowers, and glaring into my very face were a pair of
flashing eyes, two hands raised and clinched like claws were
within two inches of me. Whether the woman uttered a
sound or not I cannot say, but she looked the growl of a
tigress ; such passion I never saw in a human face. I am
too phlegmatic to flinch, but Mr. H. raised his arm to pro
tect me, and in a second the back of her head was towards
us again. Indeed, so quickly had all this transpired, that
neither Bessie nor Mr. W. saw it, and but for the continu
ous quivering of the dingy fuchsias, I might have thought
I had dozed off and dreamed the scene. She did not stir
again during the whole hour we sat in the theater, but
seemed absorbed in Mrs. Bates' prolonged hysterical ago
nies. As we rose to leave the house she gave me one
thorough stare, and if her memory is good she will know
me hereafter. Poor thing, how sore her heart must be,
how morbidly sensitive her pride, how uncomfortable the
flashing out of her inner life, and yet what a strong power
of suppression. I would beg her pardon for my cruel
words if that would do any good. Think what her life
must have been, opposing itself to the brutal and brutal
izing ideas of " revelations," as they Call them, of polygamy.
I had taunted her with her shame and her desolation, and
she hated me. Could I blame her ? " God pity her, for
she's a woman still."

132 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Sabbath Noon, April 28th. — This morning Mr. C. sent
up his card with the morning paper announcing services in
the Presbyterian Church, St. Mark's Mission (Episcopal),
and the Methodist Church ; also the Mormon performances
in the Tabernacle. The programme for the day was soon
arranged ; I betook myself in the morning to the Presbyte
rian Church, while Bessie went to St. Mark's, where she
described the congregation as numbering two hundred.
The Presbyterian Church is not so large, and meeting "in
an upper room," but there were enough of us gathered
there to warrant the presence and blessing of our Lord and
Saviour. Our friend Mr. C. was to fill the pulpit in the
evening. For many days I had wondered what I should
do with the fourth commandment when I went to the Tab
ernacle, and not being thoroughly satisfied I should break
it (considering my motives), and being even less settled as
to my keeping it, I gave up the question and arranged to go
in the afternoon with my two ministerial friends and Bessie
to the Tabernacle. Rev. Mr. W., the pastor I had heard in
the morning, said that he was anxious that every one visit
ing Salt Lake City should see and know for themselves the
doctrines and spirit of Mormonism. On my way home
from the morning service I had met the tremendous tide of
heathenism that was flowing out of the great colossal gath
ering place they call their Tabernacle, and having been
comforted by the prayers and presence of God's people,
had absolutely forgotten what was the main element of the
city and country, and so asked innocently enough whether
the Methodist Church had just been dismissed ? The man
to whom I had addressed the question looked at me with
a smile of pleasant pity, and made answer: "Madam,
these are the Latter Day Saints ; " and then the multitude
began to pour through the city thick and fast. Sturdy

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 133
looking men — almost all young — moved forward with a
swinging stride utterly indescribable. One must see the
walk of " a settler." to comprehend it ; it is not exactly a
hustle — it is too persistent for that — but it is not such a
gait as one ever sees on our own avenues, or even in a regi
ment of men. In fact, it was more like the dash of the
mountain streams of Salt Lake City — two-feet-wide little
torrents of water, six or eight inches deep, sweeping along
in a bustle through their stony beds and tearing forward
with a stir and commotion that is quite enlivening. As
the crowd passed me — for at once I set my face eastward
and walked against this human current — I observed the
men all by themselves, the women following behind ; these
latter were plain, common, countrified creatures, foreign in
their aspect, plain but comfortable in their dress. They
looked happy to think they owned one of the hundreds of
wagons that filled the streets (it was immaterial to them
whether they drove mules or oxen), for the sense and look
of possession was strong in every face. Hundreds passed
me, and thousands were crowding up behind ; in short, I
was compelled to turn and walk with them till I reached a
street less crowded. It appears that this is a field day in
the Mormon camp, and is the last of a series-of convoca
tions. Sabbath Afternoon, 6 p. m. — Dear me, I feel as if I had
been at a circus ; as far as a comfortable conscience goes, I
might much better have stayed at home and studied my
Bible. At 2.30 we were en route for the Tabernacle, a build
ing that looks like a stupendous mushroom sided in, but is
measurably hidden from public view by an immense wall
built around a large square, in which is also the foundation
for " the Temple." We had front seats, or at least those
well forward in the center of the house, which is a huge

134 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
barn of a place, having a large gallery running all around it.
About a sixth of the space in front of us is occupied by the
organ (a very magnificent affair, but not completed) and
choir, consisting of nearly two hundred most indifferent
voices as well as singers, and ranges of seats, more or less
elevated, for the various ranks of dignitaries in this
church! There is President Young's seat, then those of
the Apostles, Elders, Bishops, etc. Vis-a-vis as we were,
we had an excellent opportunity of studying the physiog
nomy of the leaders of these benighted creatures. First of
all was old Orson Pratt, whose very hair seemed redolent of
the hate and bigotry that is so ingrained in his nature ;
indeed, the faces of all these men were either wicked and
devilish, or narrow, fanatical and self-righteous. The con
gregation consisted of at least thirteen thousand persons,
two-thirds of whom were women ; more than the half of
them seemed common, rough, coarse field hands, but very
few looked depraved. Then there were others who showed
some refinement of face and life ; these had a vicious look
when they glanced at the pews reserved for " the Gentiles,"
of whom there were two or three hundred -.present. Every
variety of feminine costume was to be seen, and almost
every fashion ever invented of hat or bonnet. The major
ity wore hats or Shakers ; a few slat sun bonnets from the
rural districts showed their ugliness, and one sweet-faced
English woman sat serene and sad within the enclosure of
"a cottage bonnet," around the front of which on the
inside were twined "as a border" a wreath of good-sized
artificial roses. After all there was something so womanly
and attractive about her quaint but well-preserved head
gear, that my mind traveled back to the time when such
were woman's ways and fashions, and forward to the lessen
ing size of head dresses and the overpowering power of

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 135
hair, and so I forgot to attend to the first prayer, which
went off like a sky rocket. This was followed by the sing
ing of the hymn so dear to us all —
" Prayer is the soul's sincere desire.''
Even the tune was our own ; it was shocking. Again
followed another prayer, to which I paid the strictest atten
tion. Indeed, during the afternoon there were seven
prayers, as they called them, and they were the oddest and
most extraordinary mixture of religion, rant and blasphemy
it is possible to conceive of in the English language.
Scraps of the form of prayer of the English Church rattled
out by one man in the midst of blasphemous thanksgiving
for the release of Brigham Young, while another had all
the fervor and form of expression of the Methodist religion,
and a third pleaded his cause with God's covenant promises
at his tongue's end. He struck me as being the worst of
all, for I am convinced he knew better, and I am constrained
to confess that I thought him a Scotch Presbyterian !
Below the dais on which the elite sat was a long table on
which were placed the elements for communion service, a
dozen or so silver cake baskets filled with bread, and as
many ice pitchers filled with water. These were afterwards
distributed among the congregation in a helter-skelter fash
ion that had not the slightest reverence or solemnity about
it, and made one's blood fairly curdle with horror and
dismay. Then Brigham Young took the stand. He is a smooth
faced diplomatist, who keeps what he knows behind his
flat, false face, and thus hides some of his villainy. There
he stood, a large man dressed in the finest of broadcloth, but
having tied round his neck over his coat a Magenta silk
handkerchief, while he frequently and vociferously blew

136 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
his nose on a scarlet mouchoir of the same material. He
leaned on the desk and said to his audience : " How are
you ? How do you do ? " They answered, " Oh, first rate ! "
" All right ! " " Bully ! " He then congratulated himself
and them upon his release from a kind of nominal imprison
ment to which he had been subjected by the United States
government, spoke in pleasant terms of the captain and
company who had him in charge, and then went on with
his usual (they tell me) reference to Joseph Smith, and
tlieir church being driven from Missouri, and thence drifted
into a diplomatic tirade against all Gentiles, their religion,
laws, etc. He is an old man. I was thankful to be assured
that he is now seventy-two years of age, and trust God in
His providence will soon remove him from the world and
a position in which he has still more influence than any
man in Utah, although his own people call him "Profit"
Young. He is a very common person in his speech and
manner, and ungrammatical expressions poured from his
lips in a style that showed he was oblivious to any rules of
the science of language. At last he closed by saying : " The
choir will now sing an ann-thee-um." This was too much
for my gravity, and I laughed such a jolly laugh that every
one joined me. George A. Smith, a desperately ugly old
Englishman, in a high frizzled wig, who is usually called
"The Bully Bishop," then spoke for some time. It was a
clap-trap kind of talk that would have been very indifferent
stump speaking. His main point was the assurance that
he knew when to stop. After three more speeches and a
final "Ann-thee-um" the convocation was dismissed, and
will not meet again until October. Although there were
full thirteen thousand persons present, the egress from the
house is so well planned that in ten minutes the building
was emptied. We walked home in a pouring rain. I am

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 137
hour by hour more and more overwhelmed by a realizing
sense of the heathenism of this portion of our country.
That it should exist and flourish as it does is a disgrace, a
horror, a desolating and disheartening thought. That Salt
Lake, that treacherous, mysterious looking sea, should rise
inch by inch and foot by foot, as it proves to do, is not to
be wondered at when we remember the fate of the cities of
the plain. Sodom and Gomorrah were swallowed up in
their day, and so yet may this festering mass of corruption
be swept from the face of the earth. 10 p. m. — At 7 the
, rain ceased, and the sun sank slowly behind the snow cov
ered Wasatch Mountains, leaving an "afterglow" that was
glorious to behold. It seemed as if beyond those hills was
promise of an eternal day, a heavenly city, where there was
no need of sun or moon, for the Lamb was the light
thereof, the brightness and glory of that new Jerusalem
for which we long. Never before had we seen such a
wonderful irradiation. The snn in all his pomp and power
had not the awe-inspiring force of this subtle and pene
trating brilliancy of the heavens. In the evening Eev.
Mr. C. preached extemporaneously, taking for his text the
comfort and the sure support of an intelligent and enlight
ened faith in the Son of .Righteousness. They were words
fitly spoken, and "like apples of gold in pictures of silver."
Thus Christ, in his infinite love and watchful mercy, had
sent the comforter to those of his people who had rallied
round the banner of the cross, and a day star of hope has
arisen in our hearts once more.
Monday Morning, April 29. — I felt every bone in my
body aching with a special ache of its own ere I opened
my eyes to, see heavy flakes of snow falling thick and fast,
filling the peach and plum blossoms like so many upturned
cups in the gardens about our windows, covering deep and
15

138 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
white the ground and street, shutting out all hope of a
drive to Camp Douglass (Gen. M. had called yesterday, and
we were to see him again at the camp). The Mormon wives
who inhabited the house next us scuttled in and out of
doors in the preparation of breakfast. Our room was cold
and cheerless, and we dressed slowly and rather sourly.
On descending to the dining-room we found a good fire
and more comfortable atmosphere. The big Mormon pro
prietor of the hotel, a pompous, swelling, disgusting look
ing man, who had tliree wives — one to superintend the
kitchen, the next to look after the housemaids, and the
third to be a fine lady — marched up and down past us as
we stood near the stove, taking no more heed of two lone
women than if we never existed. Whether it was the
snow-ladened air, or my contempt for a Mormon, or the
way I ached that made me fractious, I cannot say, but as he
came up between the rows of tables for the third time, I
approached him and said with gentle inquiry, " Is this the
head waiter?" All at once his great double chin and bull
neck flamed red like the wattles of an angry gobbler, and
he replied, holding his voice as well as he could, " It is not."
I bowed, looked discouraged, and inquired meekly, " Is
there a head waiter ? " This drove him desperate, and he
made answer, " What do you wish, madam ? " " Some one
whose business it is to show some attention to a lady."
" We all show attention to the ladies," he replied, with that
puffy sort of condescension peculiar to pompous people.
In one second my nostrils flared, my lips quivered, I drew
my hands together, and my figure within itself as it were,
and let every fibre of it express the disgust I genuinely felt,
as I said, "Not such attention as I have been accustomed
to. Will you show me to a seat? " Eeally, the man looked
as if he would burst a blood-vessel, but by the time he had

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 139
placed us at the table, Bessie said he had turned as pale as
death, and she expected to see him fall down in a fit. As
Tony Weller said of the man who kept a pike, I " awenged "
myself on human nature in that Mormon. No doubt he
would have gladly sent the Danites (those wretches who
execute the will of Brigham Young's inquisition) after me,
but General M. called and took us over to Mr. M.'s, to see
the specimens of ore taken from those wonderful silver and
copper mines that promise such unlimited wealth to this
Territory. Thus I was protected by the United States.
We also when the storm abated, went to see the museum,
where there was one of the most extraordinary birds they
called a barn owl. It looked and acted precisely like a stu
pid monkey, and would have made the fortune of Dore, or
comforted the heart of Darwin.
6 p. m. — General M. conducted us to the cars, and at two
p. m. we were en route for Ogden. As I looked about I
saw in a seat near me a plain old lady, of sixty or more, who
had such a bright face that I determined to cultivate her.
Within three minutes we were engaged in an animated
conversation on the subject of the Mormons and their
abominable belief and practices. She told me she had
been two hundred miles out of Salt Lake City to visit her
only son, who was a Mormon. I had not the heart to ask
the poor old dame how many daughters-in-law she had been
forced to contend with. She had lived with him six
months. She knew the rural districts. The women were
not bad, but " the men beat natur'." Presently her hus
band approached us and said: "Now, mother, you just
keep quiet ; we'll get to Ogden presently, then you can say
what you've a mind to. There's a man sitting right, behind
yon with two wives along with him ; you talk 'bout some
thing else."

140 MRS. MORSE STEWART.

a

Pa," replied the old lady gallantly, " it's no use talking
any more to me. It's been, 'Ma, don't say a word,' 'Don't
you let on to notice,' 'Keep a civil tongue,' 'I wouldn't say
anything about it,' and all that, for six mortal months, and I
done it too ; but I'll tell this lady all I know if she wants
to hear it. If the man with two wives behind me bursts
hisself, you know it 'ill be true, every word of it." The old
gentleman, seeing his good lady had taken the bit between
her teeth, subsided with a sigh.
Such a history as she gave me would satisfy any reason
able person that the system and practices of the Mormon
church were a stench in the nostrils of all decent people.
This generation of women are not so badly demoralized, but
the young girls coming on to the stage are thoroughly cor
rupt already, and as the old lady remarked, " If there ain't
any women to the fore to keep the men and the children
up to what they ought to be, I'd like to know who is going
to do it, or what is to become of the hull lot." With this
question we close our paragraph.
Tuesday, April 30th. — Yesterday we had our first expe
rience in providing for ourselves. At the Ogden depot the
Pullman palace cars cease and the Silver palace cars take
their place. As an Irish friend might remark, they are
" the same with a difference." Then too, it is somewhat
difficult to get sections, but Bessie is quite wonderful, for
when every man of our escort failed to make any impres
sion upon the railway ofiicials, she seized the tickets
and purses, insisted upon being allowed the privilege of
stepping inside of the office, and in ten minutes returned
with the five best sections in the car secured to our party.
Hats were raised and thanks tendered ; the young woman
was recognized as a power — an efficient agent. " She knew
how to do business" — "Her head was level." She had

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 141
been so agreeable that it had never occurred to any person
she could be useful. It was amusing to see, after this busi
ness escapade, how much she was consulted and referred to.
After getting ourselves settled and in order for another
fifty hours of travel, we watched our fellow passengers with
much interest. The first comer was a magnificent miner,
a tall, square-shouldered fellow, six feet four at least. He
might have been a son of Anak. His clothes fitted him
superbly — Easch & Bernart never turned out anything more
artistic than the brown mixture that clothed this Colossus of
Utah. His brown locks blew back from a very plain
face, as he dashed into the cars cheering on a half dozen
followers. Such a face and such a figure one always
fancies as leading a forlorn hope— gallant, brilliant, brave,
sanguine — the nerve of a conqueror and the dare of a Bohe
mian. In one hand he carried the' inevitable portmanteau,
in the other a long black whisky bottle ; his six companions
were all similarly equipped for the journey, except that one
man in lien of a hand-satchel and whisky bottle, had a high
demijohn and whisky bottle. The party soon settled into
their sections just adjoining ours, whipped out a pack of
cards, and began, with great shouting and much good-
natured swearing and laughter, to play " seven up." Young
Mrs. F., a lovely woman from New York, the only lady
besides ourselves on board, came down the car to bemoan
witli us our noisy, lawless' neighbors. What should we do?
My advice was to wait a little, and perhaps we could bring
them into some sort of order, but how, no one knew. We
certainly did not wish to speak to this whisky-drinking,
gambling, swearing, lawless crew of wild' men. But the
angel over our right shoulder warned us to deal gently with
them. At night after the berths were made up, and they
were forced to go to bed, they passed their bottles and told

142 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
ridiculous stories, cracked senseless jokes, and seemed deter
mined .never to subside. The next morning our plan of
action was decided upon. Bessie was to make the most of
my pale face, grieve over it, etc., express the hope that I
might get to San Francisco without being ill, and all that
sort of thing, while I would be as pleasant as I could on the
subject of our various trials. No sooner was the car in
order again, than "seven up" was inaugurated for the day.
Breakfast would not be reached for two hours, and all the
miners exchanged bottles and took a round from the demi
john ; the blasphemy began again ; something definite must
be done. I had been studying the scenery, which as yet
was but a repetition of the sand hills of the two days out
from Omaha, when all at once the big miner swore a most
tremendous oath. I turned with a start that was genuine,
and said silently, as far as expression could say : " My friend,
whatever else you do, you must not dishonor God's name.' '
Whether he blushed, or whether the whisky only came to
the surface, I cannot say, but every time he broke the third
commandment after that he looked to see if we objected
to it. We did object ; we appeared disturbed and distressed,
until at last he reached a point of attention where he bit an
oath in two, and then with a grave and courteous smile I
made my countenance say, "I thank you, sir." By noon
the big miner had thrown up the cards and walked up and
down the aisle of the car, restless as a lion in a cage. He
evidently wished to speak to us, but dared not. At last a
guide book slipped off the seat, and slid and rattled into the
middle of the car ; he captured it on his way down, read
the name in it before he turned about, and came back offer
ing it shyly to me. I thanked him, and by my manner
expressed, " I would be glad to say more, but am afraid you
are not sufficiently respectable." The man felt and accepted

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 143
the doubt, and humbly said, " Are you from the States ? "
" Yes." After a few preliminaries about where, when, etc.,
he flushed very red, and inquired, " Did you sleep well last
night?" "Oh, very well after the car quieted down."
" Did I understand that you two ladies are traveling alone ? "
"Yes." Then swallowing a great lump in his throat he
remarked, " We thought the gentlemen with you belonged
to you some way." "No," I replied, "they are strangers;
they have been most polite and kind, but we are alone all
the same ; it is a long journey." After this what became
of the cards and whisky no one knew ; but the men ceased
to swear, and comported themselves in the most respectful
and deferential manner. One was a geologist, another a
civil engineer — an elderly old soul with a terrific impedi
ment in his speech — the two looked so exactly alike in face,
hair, beard and figure, that we could only distinguish them
by their expression, and so called one "good Mr. Brown,"
and the other "vicious Mr. Brown." Then there was
"little Mr. Miner" and "big Mr. Miner."
To-night the agent came for our names, and I found that
at this point (Weston), the telegraph announces our pres
ence in California, and to-morrow the papers will publish
in San Francisco and Sacramento a full list of Pullman car
passengers to arrive by the evening train. Thus far the
scenery has been to me rather disappointing ; the. rarefied
air of the Eocky Mountains gave a more impressive idea of
height than one gained by looking from the car window or
platform. To-morrow the scene is to change.
Wednesday. — This morning at five o'clock we were up
and dressed, and all adjourned to the platform of the rear
car, to view the Sierra Nevada Mountains. At this point we
asked for an observation car, but although their time tables
advertise them, the conductors announced that there was no

144 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
provision for one. The miners followed us out, and seemed
to be anxious to see what impression their mountains made
upon us ; and so willing and anxious were they to tell us all
they knew of the peaks and flats of the Sierras, that Mrs.
F., Bessie and myself had not the heart to turn the cold
shoulder upon them. What a comment it was upon a
woman's influence. Never handsome, no longer young, not
even old enough to be motherly ; having given a steady
rebuke to habits of speech so at variance with my own
ideas, these rough men, who had " panned out more gold
than you ever saw," had been touched to their hearts' core
by the fact that they had behaved badly to ladies who were
alone. That gallant, generous and manly impulse to protect
a woman, had transformed these men into patient, pains
taking, self-sacrificing natures, that seemed new even to
themselves. Among this rough set I asked no greater right
for my sex than to look to them for protection. A woman
can measure the deference they must pay, and she will
receive her full allowance. Indeed, one of the most absurd
things happened iu the night, and will bear telling. A
Mrs. Jackson came on board after eleven at night, and find
ing that one of these miners was an acquaintance of hers,
she sent word by the porter that she would be glad to have
him exchange berths, as hers was not so pleasant. The
man got up and made every arrangement for her comfort.
After she retired, he found that the only position she was
entitled to was a single narrow seat. That woman was a
fraud. For hours we sat on the platform wrapped in our heavy
shawls and furs, watching the various beautiful hills and
valleys, until we found the whole party quieted and sub
dued — indeed every heart intuitively
"Looked from Nature
Up to Nature's God."

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 145
This may be the highest Pantheism. We know it is not
all the worship God orders us to pay, but in His works,
standing face to face with Him and beholding His power
our souls respond.
Until ten a. m. it has been bitterly cold, but as we begin
to descend, the air grows warm, and the verdure is glorious.
At two o'clock we reached Sacramento, and were hot as in
the hottest day of summer. Here Eev. Mr. C. left us for a
few days, and we solaced ourselves with strawberries. At
eight o'clock we were in Oakland, which is the Brooklyn of
San Francisco. Our train had picked up about six immense
picnic parties, and we were a long time getting on board
of the large ferry. May day is truly May day in this part
of the country. As we crossed the bay the brightness of
the great city shone over the water toward us, and the cool
salt breeze subjected us once more to a change of tempera
ture. The effect of the many lights gleaming from the
depots, wharfs and hills of San Francisco, was most beauti
ful, sometimes forming a glowing crescent, at other, squares
and parallels, and flashing like so many brilliant stars
against the deep blue background of the night. But, oh,
how weary we were ; if I had been a foot shorter and
weighed fifty pounds less, I should have invited " big Mr.
Miner" to carry me on shore. As it was I summoned all
my energy, and reached the coach of the Grand Hotel. At
this point I parted with Bessie, Mr. W. and Mr. C. going
with me. A half an hour more found me taking " mine
ease in mine inn." Elegant apartments faded into insignif
icance before the more luxurious dressing-room, with hot,
cold and shower baths awaiting me. By the time I had
effected a radical renovation of skin and change of garments,
I was prepared to enjoy the French chocolate, strawberries
and cream sent to my room at ten p. m. Then my head

146 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
rested on a genuine pillow, and for eight hours I slept the
sleep of the just.
San Francisco, Thursday, May 2. — The day has been
bright with friends. Since breakfast I have received one
perpetual and prolonged welcome from those who had pre
ceded me to California. Ladies and gentlemen who knew
me or mine ten, fifteen, twenty-five, and even thirty years
ago, ignored the time and distance that had intervened, and
talked to me of " Your father's house " and " Your hus
band's boyhood" as things of yesterday. Perhaps, had we
been dwelling side by side all these years in old Detroit, we
would have drifted far apart ; as it was, friendship and
memory bridged the past, and we stood nearer to each other
for the very mountains that had separated us.
Friday, May 3. — This morning Bessie and her father
came for me, and I saw some city wonders, such as the
Bank of California, Chi Lung's and many other Chinese
stores full of curious and undesirable stuff from the Celes
tial kingdom. But the most astonishing sight of all is Cal
ifornia street at noon. There is an immense mining excite
ment just at this time. Every man in the city draws nigh
this hour to the place where so much capital is changing
hands — nay, where fortunes are lost or made. However,
only the latter are reported ; those who have been worsted
in this little encounter of wits retire to the extremest seclu
sion of private life, and are seen no more for many a long
day. One Michigan young man had made $300,000, and
was tossing his gains hither and thither amongst his family.
Provident, far-sighted sisters were laying in sewing machines
and other comforts in adversity, foreseeing some day a
change in the balance on the bank book. Having been
instructed that the thing to do was to lunch at Solomon's
restaurant, on California street, I allowed myself to be car-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 147
ried in by the crowd. Lunch is the noon meal of Califor
nia, and consists of a cup of tea. Every man drinks a cup
of the beverage that cheers, even if they follow it in ten
minutes with a glass that intoxicates. Then comes a
salade, or dish of California oysters, and a piece of pie or
cake. These same bivalves are the oddest cross between a
clam and the smallest of small oysters ; I cannot say they
are nice. Sometimes shrimps are substituted for salade,
and you pick the head and tail off and eat the inside of the
insect without flinching ; they taste like nuts, but owing to
their legs and tenebrae generally, every one I swallowed
was evidence of a victory over a squeamish and rebellious
stomach. Such a "feed" as this lunch room presented,
with all its hurrying, noisy crowd of hungry, hasty men, I
never saw but once before, and that was when an Illinois
brother stood at one end of a fenced-off corner of the field
and called, " Pig ! pig ! ! pig ! ! ! " San Francisco has all
the appliances of a great city. It is a great city ; its harbor
and natural position make it a great center of transfer. At
the Grand Hotel the tables are filled with the represent
atives from the ends of the earth — England, Scotland,
France, Eussia, Japan, all the isles of the sea, Spain, Por
tugal, China, South America, in short, every country on the
face of the globe, and every State of the United States
sends a traveler to leave his record on the hotel register.
In some respects the city looks like New York of a quarter
of a century ago, but it has a climate of its own that one
ought to desire never to disseminate. For instance, this
morning I rose and dressed with a sense of chilliness that
at home one would have counteracted by a good fire. In
the hotel drawing room I tried to warm myself by the fire
in the grate, but there was something (other than cold) that
took the life out of any heat the glowing coals sent out.

148 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
In five minutes my bonnet and thick dress were on, and the
street and the sunshine soon warmed me through and
through. Down Montgomery street we sailed, with para
sols up and summer in the breeze, but turning to go across
the city a wind struck us like a squall — sun umbrellas col
lapsed, and we shivered in the wind for several blocks — the
biting, cutting, sandy draft that swept over us, penetrated
to the marrow of our bones, and when we emerged from
the shadow of the houses into the sunlight it was as if one
had passed through a tunnel. The sky is blue and beautiful
and the sea breeze invigorating. Miles we walked without
tliinking of being fatigued, and though we were so chilled
neither of us feel that we have taken cold. They tell me
lungs and bronchial tubes give way after lengthened expos
ure to this sort of " variety."
Saturday, May 4. — This morning Mr. C. dashed into the
breakfast room with word that " They were all ready to
drive out to the Cliff House — would I join them ? " It
was a charming drive in a handsome open beach wagon,
with plenty of robes, and we were swept over the ground
by a gay pair of bays. All the way out to this celebrated
resort we saw placards and painted boards announcing,
" Homestead lots for sale," " Building lots for sale on
time," etc., and all owned by various stock companies.
Everything is a stock company, whether a mine, a moun
tain, or a marsh, and the companies are invariably sold out
on a mortgage. If any one wanted a homestead on this
sand-barren his ambition was not great ; for my own part I
found the idea of settling for life in such a windy wilder
ness very depressing. Three miles brought us to the bleak
est of bleak look-outs, a square frame hotel on the top (or
rather edge) of the cliff ; here we went out on a balcony
where the wind tore one's shawls, blew the sight out of

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 149
one's eyes, sent one's veil up into the air in a manner that
added three feet to one's stature, kept one in fear and trem
bling that each minute every rag of skirt and canvas would
be blown away and you be left clutching your skin to keep
that on. Under these pleasant circumstances we watched
" the sea-lions of San Francisco Bay " as they climbed upon
the island of rocks that the Legislature of California has set
apart for their especial sporting ground. They are ugly,
slippery, ungainly looking, black or tan colored animals,
that remind one of the "half horse half alligator" of the
Mississippi river, and have huge flappers that are neither
legs nor fins, but serve in the capacity of both ; unlike
seals they have no fur — only a black hide with here and
there a few coarse short hairs upon it. The view of the bay
is exceedingly fine, and it was funny to see the little fish
ing smacks scudding up and down, top-heavy with their
huge lateen sails, and as indifferent to the hurricane that
was blowing us about as the very sea-gulls themselves.
After a while the " breeze " subsided a little, the tide
went out, and we took to the carriage again,' and went
down on to the beach for a longer drive. Mr. W. was told
to " take the first road to the right when he turned, and that
would give us a pleasant view of another portion of coun
try," but the wet sand made such a delightful road-bed, and
the outgoing water had left all so beautifully swept and
garnished, that we missed our "first turning," and went on
and on like the children in a fairy tale. At last we saw
something like a road up wliich we passed, and drove
through beds and fields of flowers — purple, blue, gold and
scarlet flamed on the hill-sides, and we gathered and gath
ered and gathered, stopping now here, now there, till
the carriage was full. After awhile we struck a little
marshy sweep, green and fresh as a meadow — in fact to all

150 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
appearances it was like the Happy Valley that Easselas,
prince of Abyssinia, lit upon so suddenly. Step by step
the trace of our road became fainter and yet more faint.
The Eev. Mr. C. looked at his watch — it was two o'clock ;
at four he must take the boat to go and preach at Vallejo ;
and where were we ? No house in sight, only the glorious
flower-covered hills and the green pastures of as still a spot
of earth as one could desire to see, and the road gone.
There was nothing for us but to let the horses find their
own way, which in a very few moments they did, and once
more we saw traces of wheels. After this we bowled
forward till we observed that sure sign of habitation, a
fence. An unfortunate cow had slid her head between the
bars and in twenty minutes she would have been a strangled
creature, had not Mr. W. stopped the horses and the two
Mr. C.'s broken the board loose. For an hour and a half
we spun over the ground, stimulated by the laudable desire
to make up for the time lost in rescuing the cow and get
Mr. C. to the Vallejo boat, which was just accomplished.
At four we drove up to the Grand, as tired and pleased a
party of pleasure seekers as any one would wish to see.
Sunday, May 5. — This morning Major N. and Miss W.
came for me to go and hear Dr. Lyman, rector of Trinity
church. The red wood of California, which works like
pine but resembles black walnut in color, was employed
externally and internally in the construction of the edifice,
and the effect, though somewhat somber, was strikingly
good. It was communion Sabbath, and the service quite
irregular, but the sermon able, full of thought, and expressed
with strength and clearness. Miss W. lunched with me,
and then, wrapping myself up to meet the breeze of the
harbor, we started for Angel Island. My young friend
always suffered from sea-sickness in crossing the bay, and

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 151
this occasion was no exception ; how the cockle-shell of a
government steamer did^toss about. Angel Island is the
most lovely spot of its kind I ever saw ; the rocks, and
trees, and shrubs and turf are browner and greener than
elsewhere, and the flowers are gorgeous. At General W.'s
there is a huge hedge of geraniums fifteen feet high, and
fuchsias and roses as immense as they are brilliant, while
clumps of calla lilies, or lilies of the Nile, as we called them
in old times, reared their tall stately heads on every side.
But the flowers are hardy children, lacking sadly that deli
cacy and evanescent beauty that distinguishes them with
us. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a
California blossom makes but scant appeal to our sensibil
ities. The views of the bay from this point are very fine.
From the eastern side one looks out at the Golden Gate,
and through that wondrous door sees the sea that runs
round all the world,, and heart and soul goes drifting
through those mysterious portals out upon the wide expanse
to where the heavens take you in ; and thus you dream, till
suddenly a mighty east wind strikes you a blow so pitiless
and fierce that you wind yonr wraps about you and come
down from that pleasant higher life to the petty miseries of
existence. After sunset we gathered round the fire and
spent the evening recalling the histories of old Detroit and
her people ; all the single men and women • passed in
review — how white tlieir hair had grown, and all that sort
of thing — and then the married folks, and their song and
daughters, and then the landmarks of onr river and its
shore, until the deepening night warned us to bed.
Monday, May 6. — Came back to my hotel this morning
at ten o'clock. Saw that curious rock on which a fortress
and its attendant men and works had been established —

152 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Alcatray, they called it — and here, too, on soil brought far
across the bay, the flowers bloomed and sought to creep
into the mouths of idle cannon, but strict military rule per
vades this adamantine resting place, and no such follies are
permitted. Tuesday, May 7. — Being advised to sit for photographs
because of the atmosphere, we spent the morning at E. &
C.'s, and for the first time in my life I have obtained a good
likeness. From the photographers we went to the princi
pal ladies' charity in the city, the Home Protection Society,
which is conducted upon principles very nearly resembling
those which govern the Eeference Committee of our own
Home of the Friendless. Such a task as it was to get up
the hill ! The wind is a perfect prize fighter, and throws
dust, and sand, and grit into the eyes and nostrils in a man
ner not conducive to peace or happiness, nor admissible in
the rulings of "the ring." On this occasion it knocked me
into a coal-heaver's arms, and there, gasping and breathless,
I anathematized "the breeze." As to the institution, it
was Board meeting day, and everything was in the most
scrupulous order. The ladies, as a rule, looked cross and
exasperated ; it may be the wind that does it, but as a gen
eral thing the lady strangers I met on all sides were quite a
contrast to the gentlemen ; I mean, of course, those of the
California residents to whom I was " only a tourist." Two
patient women (the wives of doctors) were an honorable
and pleasant exception ; with one of these I had a few
moments' intelligent conversation as to the workings of
their Home.
Wednesday, May 8.— Bessie, Mr. O, Mr. W. and myself
left for the Geysers at four p. m. on the Vallejo boat, a fine
steamer that plows "the bay." Through the enterprise of
Mr. C. we were invited to go up into the wheel house,

0

cu,

<yns c/ / /y/

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 153
which we did, and sat there looking ont with more comfort
and pleasure than we had found anywhere else upon that
broad expanse of water. We saw Goat Island, over which
Congress has " muckled" for so many months, and all the
isles and channels of this wonderful harbor, the captain and
helmsman vieing with each other in giving us all the infor
mation in their power. Vallejo is a bright little town
where the main depot of Napa Valley Eailroad is placed.
The cars swept us steadily through that lovely Napa Val
ley, the garden spot of California — vineyards, orchards,
wheat fields, well-tilled earth, and comfortable, prosperous
looking houses and farms were all that was to be seen, no
break in the long line of luxuriant cultivation. At eight
o'clock we reached Calitoga Springs, a very bright and gay
resting place, from which one goes on to the Geysers or
over to the Petrified Forests. It has a hotel, with a large
number of cottages, every one of wliich was filled. We
went off with a Mrs. S. and her daughter and our own
young gentlemen, to one, and in ten minutes we were house
keeping in the most agreeable fashion. Six of us gathered
into our little parlor, and felt more at home than we had
done since we left " the States." The springs here are sul
phurous in character, and spring from the earth at almost
boiling heat. By the addition of a little salt and pepper to
the water, they give you what they call chicken soup ; it is
an odd caricature of the genuine article — possibly the light
lunch of the infernal regions, who knows? After we
retired, the mellifluous music of the insect world, and the
manner in which they presented their bills, and drew drafts,
reminded me of the speech of an Irish man servant, who
had gone with the children and myself on some picnic
excursion. He used his hands and hat for some time to
16

154 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
ward off those insidious and nagging pests, until at last he
broke forth, " These miskeeters is hostile."
Thursday, May 9, at 7.30 a. m., Foss, the celebrated whip
of these regions, was at the door with his various coaches,
open C spring wagons, strong enough to bear the tremen
dous driving they get. An immense party (at least fifty)
filled his vehicles to overflowing, and in ten minutes we
were en route. How shall I describe the beauty of this
drive, how give any idea of the sweep and dash of our
coach train through the valleys of Enssian Eiver, Santa
Eosa, and Petaluma, how tell of the crowning view of all
these lovely hills and ravines ? Language is so poor, my
own gift so unsatisfactory, that I dare not attempt it. All
one saw, when the train stopped and we looked back and
down " upon the kingdoms of the world and the glory of
them," is something to be remembered, but even an artist
could not record it. Up to this point we had climbed
patiently ; after this the descent began, and the manner in
which our six horses took us round curves and corners at a
2.40 pace, would have shaken the nerves of anxious mor
tals. Here we began to see the bright silver thread of
water that gleamed gaily at the bottom of a canon four or
five hundred feet deep ; in some places there was just one
inch of road beyond our wheels, and the other side was a
pitiless mass of rock. Following the edge of the canon,
at the bottom of which flowed the bright stream, by one
o'clock we came within sound of a fearful whistle. This
was but a bit of iron pipe laid at the opening in the earth,
from which a jet of hot air and vapor escaped. The thing
moaned or shrieked just as the evil spirit within opened or
shut this natural safety valve. Soon we were in sight of
the little hotel which is tucked away under the shadow of
a tremendous rocky steep, and which offered us lunch and a

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 155
comfortable bed for a nap ere we set out to see the Geysers.
At' five o'clock the guides come to take the party up the
canon to where the Geysers proper, make their explosive
appearance. The path from the hotel to the bright, gay
little stream is very lovely ; trees, shrubs and grass, brilliant
as emeralds, lined the way. The bed and sides of this
water course are studded with rocks in every picturesque
form possible, and, having preceded . the party by at least
half an hour, I spent the time till their arrival drinking in
the exquisite beauty of the scene. But soon the order
"forward march" was issued, and seizing my climbing
staff started with the rest up an extremely narrow canon,
which was nothing more or less than a huge mass of rock
cleft in twain to the depth of hundreds of feet. A minute,
sluggish, yellow and green stream of water, odorous of sul
phur, magnesia, and a thousand and one ill smelling min
eral compounds, slid and stumbled among the filthy rocks
over which we climbed. Sweeping down the canon came
the pestiferous breath of devils and damned spirits, and my
face evidently grew white and agonized by the heat and
stench from wliich we suffered, for the guide came up to
me and said, with anxious kindness, "Madam, there was a
lady fainted in the canon yesterday." " I do not propose
to faint; you need be under no apprehension," was my
prompt reply. "She weighed full two hundred pounds,
and we carried her back to the hotel ; it was a tough job,
but we can do it." And as I looked back upon the devi
ous path by which we had come, I was struck with the
herculean labor it must have been. The stones under our
feet were burning hot, and the water boiling; where it
touched your skirts or soles of your boots, it seemed to eat
like some strong acid ; and at various holes in the earth we
stopped to look and listen. One was the Devil's Cauldron,

156 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
and it bubbled and thumped, and poured out steam and
sulphur, till our climbing staffs grew burning hot where
they had been thrust into the ground. The rocks on each
side of us radiated the heat they had gathered from the
sun. The path was always upward ; and again the guide
reminded me of the lady who had fainted. On the whole,
I began to think that she was a wise woman, and took a
rather sensible method of getting out of difficulty. Eest
I must, so letting the remainder of the party file past me,
I seated myself on a boulder, but soon discovered by an
intolerable steam that rose within my skirts that I was over
a point of escape for the vapors of the earth. On my own
responsibility I named it the Devil's Register. Everything
was supposed to belong to his Satanic majesty. We saw
the Devil's Wash Pot, and he no more thinks of keeping
it covered than your cook does her boiler on a Monday.
We heard the clothes giving out that peculiar bubble and
squeaking sound that evidently characterizes clothes on
wash day in the infernal regions as well as on the face of
the earth. Then came his Kettle and Pot, and Chimney,
and Inkstand, and the Witches' Cauldron, and then a high
projecting rock that was called his Pulpit, and to which we
clambered and looked down upon the boiling, steaming,
seething sides of the canon. The sight was horrible; it
seemed a very " valley of death."
Our way homeward was by another path, leading us
through pleasant woods and over sparkling streams, though
even on this route we did not escape the presence of the
possessions of the Prince of the Powers of Darkness ; for
we saw his Steamboat, and Rocking Chair, and Office, and
Bath, heard constantly the wild shrieks of his whistles,
and felt the whole earth beneath our feet shaken by the
mighty throbs of the volcanic forces imprisoned within

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 157
it. Snakes sunned themselves and warmed their chilly
scales about the craters of these semi-extinct volcanoes.
Faugh, the old theories of "hell being the center of the
earth." What is to prevent tremendous explosions in this
region ? Savans may know, but for my own part I should
be continually anticipating " a grand blow-out."
Friday, May 10. — We were up betimes and retraced the
road of yesterday, with the additional trips of the day
before — that is to say, we traveled twenty-five miles by stage,
forty-two by cars, and twenty-three by steamboat, and were
en voyage from eight a. m. till eight p. m., reaching the Grand
in time to find the D.'s had gone out for the evening. The
clerk came and told me he had taken good care of them,
giving them, according to promise, " the nicest of rooms,"
etc.; " would send the porter up with my bags and mail."
This official, who was one of the best-hearted of Irishmen,
soon appeared and led the way to an upper story — guests
being invariably treated to the lowest flat first, and on each
successive return promoted higher and higher. I followed
John O'Brien with flying feet, and a heart " mighty " anx
ious for news from home. In less time than it takes to tell
it he handed me my four letters, the topmost one of all being
a telegram. Oh, the deadly look of that envelope ! In one
second I lived over the whole length of my journey, " three
thousand miles ; " and who was sick or dying ? I could not
open the thing ; the light went out of my eyes and a sensa
tion that " nothing made any matter " stole over my senses.
In an instant the Irishman's strong, rough hand seized me
by the shoulder, and with a pretty sharp shake he said : " I
wouldn't, mem ; yez haven't looked at it yit. Take it easy."
And he con£jnued to grip me with the pinch of a vise.
Somehow the thing was opened and my dazed eyes read :
" Train delayed ; have rooms ready. — A. H. D."

158 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
This interesting missive ought to have reached me Wed
nesday at two p. m., and with the proverbial speed of a tele
gram it had been presented Saturday night. After this there
was neither " sleep to my eyes nor slumber to mine eyelids."
For many a long hour surging back came all the memories
of home — of helpless little children practically motherless,
of duties left undone, all my sins of omission and commis
sion — and sackcloth and ashes I knew would be every-day
wear for some time to come. It may be but one step from
the sublime to the ridiculous, but I generally break my
neck taking it.
Saturday, May 11. — Was so delighted to see the D.'s at
last, but cannot get over the fright of last night —
"For long, long after the storm had passed
Rolls the turbid and turbulent billow."
This afternoon we went to Woodward Gardens, which is
a very popular place of resort for San Francisco people and
their children. The grounds are prettily laid out, and there
is a large hall with a smooth floor where, in the absence of
genuine ice, the young folks disport themselves with agility
and ease upon parlor skates. Several large conservatories
are here and there about the entrance gate, and through
these we rambled with all the pleasure and delight that is
always born of flowers. A rather indifferent art gallery
shows that there is a taste for the beautiful, although as yet
it is somewhat unformed. Then we went to " see the ani
mals," and found a large collection of handsome, well-kept
beasts, birds and reptiles that would have been a credit
anywhere. The collection of monkeys was the largest and
best it was ever my good fortune to see, and though they
are such a funny travesty upon mankind they have a fasci
nation of their own. The bears of California are quite a
study, and every shade and variety are to be found here.

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 159
There is a miniature lake, very petite, for which some
Yankee has constructed a circular boat. Crowds of children
seize the oars and propel it around ! — if one can use such a
term — for hours at a time. At four we went to see the sea
lions fed. A near view of this unwieldy, curious creature,
that seems to be " neither fish, flesh, nor good herring," gave
us an opportunity of observing the peculiarity of its fnrless
skin, its frisky way of diving and swimming after its food,
the peculiar facility with which it made legs of its fins and
fins of its legs, which after all were only a kind of flapper ;
and finally, when the creature hoisted himself up on to the
rocks, where he sat like a smooth, sleek, well fed London
alderman, and surveyed the admiring audience with all the
ease and intelligence of one accustomed to the best society,
we joined with a couple of hundred people in giving him a
hearty round of applause.
Sunday, May 12. — This morning Mrs. C. S. came for
me to go with her to hear the Rev. Dr. Scott, an old time
Presbyterian, who gallantly bears up against wind and tide
the banner of the cross, and cheers his followers on in that
" good fight " which makes, every thorough Christian a
warrior. It was communion season, and he blended with
his showing of the love of Christ the duty of heart and
hand service to that Divine Master. When one after
another responded to their names as " having been admitted
to the fellowship of this church upon the profession of
their faith in ,the Lord Jesus," I saw among them elderly
men who at last had come out publicly on the Lord's side —
whose faces looked as if they were still blanched with the
conflict against sin and Satan ; men who would henceforth
for all time in this world have the battle of righteous Lot to
fight against the tide of iniquity that sets in upon a good
man in a great city. After service Mrs. S. introduced me

160 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
to several persons, adding all the "forbears" of my God-
loving, God-fearing ancestry, so that to the general polite
ness and hospitality that seems first nature in a Californian,
was added a soul-warmth that seemed to say, " Oh, she
belongs to us."
It was 12:30 p. m., and we would be just in time for Dr.
Loomis' Chinese Sabbath School, so through their quarter
we wended our way. They are a squalid set, reminding
one forcibly of Anne Maloney's description :
"There stood a rale haythen Chineeser, a grinnin' like
he'd just come off a tay box ; if you'll belave me the cray-
ther was that yellow it 'ud sicken you to see him, and sorra
a stitch was on him but a black night gown over his trows-
ers, and the front of his head shaved claner than a copper
biler, and a black tail a hangin' down from it behind, wid
his two feet stood into the heathenestest shoes you ever sit
your eyes on."
On the sidewalks were seated shoemakers, tailors, tink
ers, confectioners, etc., all with their kits and in the full
practice of tlieir various avocations. When we entered the
Sabbath School we found that May and June being consid
ered the unpleasant season of San Francisco, a large num
ber of the teachers had left the city. Not being averse to
work I seated myself next to two young boys of twelve and
thirteen, and proposed to induce them to learn A ; but a
Chinese youth of seventeen or eighteen, who sat in the seat
back, whipped out his book and pencil, and thrusting it
into mj hand, said, " Teachee John, Missis." I accord
ingly taught John — all about a horse. He could spell quite
well, and read after a fashion that promised better things ;
his pronunciation was good and accurate, except when he
undertook to say the word kindly ; " kang-ily," " kang-lee,"
was as near as he could get. Of course the essay on the

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 161
horse was the stupidest thing possible, and began, as all
children's readers do, " The horse is an animal." " Do you
know what animal means, John ? " " Yes — dog, cat, robin,
rabbit." The classification of 'the robin struck me as pecu
liar, but I did not interfere. When we reached the word
"south" (for the horse was "raised at the South, in the
State of Kentucky," according to this intelligent author),
John Chinaman knew all the points of the compass and a
great many more things besides. He saw I was not indig
enous to the soil, and inquired, " Where you live ? "
Presently Mr. Loomis called the school to order for the
purpose of repeating the Lord's prayer, the commandments,
and the singing of some hymns, and my amiable friend
John, having sucked the juice of the cocoanut by his read
ing lesson, remarked, " Good-bye ; got no time," and started
for the door. All at once he wheeled about, gave an extra
jerk to his slack trowsers, and said, " Tanke ; yon teached
me wery blane ; " and with this extraordinary recognition
of my services he rushed off to another school round the
corner, that "went in" at 1:20, where no doubt he had a
second reading lesson, and once more shied the command
ments. " The Heathen Chinee is peculiar."
Monday, May 13. — This morning we were np betimes,
and started for Los Angeles by a rather common, dirty
side- wheel steamer. We found the McM.'s and Mrs. W.
on board, so we made quite a Detroit party. The passen
gers consisted of all sorts and kinds, of people jumbled
together indiscriminately. One knot were conversing in
German, another group murmuring Spanish, a third were
discouraged Frenchmen ; at the steerage end a few sputter
ing Chinese asserted their nationality, and a man and his
wife from Georgia vainly endeavored to still the wails of

162 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
seven small children under six years of age ; evidently
they proposed to people the peninsula of Lower California.
Col. L., a California pioneer who had been a waif on the
stream of fortune, was being instructed in English grammar
by an " educated " German. The Golden Gate was full in
sight, and the sea-gulls following us through the sunshine
with their waving wings, or floating after us in the wake of
the vessel, made deck and sea seem alive and wide awake.
The day was glorious, and the bay full of ships from
every clime under heaven. More than an hour we sat
watching the sloping declivities that bound the harbor, and
momentarily nearing the channel which swept out between
two hills that are each crowned with a lighthouse. Land,
sea, and the arch above us were lovely in their blue-green
brightness; life was worth living, and even death lost his
terrors as we strained our eyes out across the brilliant ocean.
The tide was coming in, . and the waters struggled, and
dashed, and rushed over and over each other, and tossed
the vessel from end to end as if it were on rockers. One's
spirits rose, and with them courage, hope, enjoyment, gave
zest to the beauty and novelty of the situation. We were
crossing the bar ; that barrier passed, the wide ocean would
be our home for days to come. All at once a cross sea
caught us ; we no longer rocked up and down, we simply
rolled from side to side. While this continued, people
laughed with their teeth clenched; a white line added
intensity to the expression of the lips. I felt as if I were
in a swing, and the swing did not agree with me ; I would
shut my eyes and try to go to sleep. Mr. W. inquired,
"Are you sleepy, Mrs. S. ?" and I responded, "Very; I
think I'll go and take a nap;" and rising, set forth to my
state room. My head floated up into the clouds somewhere
and my feet went entirely astray. Mr. W. sprang forward

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 163
and offered me his arm ; I was considerably past taking it,
or anything else, but made my way after a fashion to that
haven of hope, my berth. On the wash stand of our room
stood a bowl ; it was the pole star of my destiny ; towards
that I steered. As I crossed the threshold I summoned all
my energy, and with a gesture worthy of a tragedy queen
in her last agonies I cried out to Mr. W., "Go away!"
And he went away — that well young man — in an agony of
mirth. Hours after, when he looked in upon my blanched
cheeks and despairing eyes, and inquired whether I had
" taken a pleasant nap ? " he received a truthful response,
" Thanks ; very pleasant." About five million mischievous
imps gleamed out of his pupils, and he bowed himself away
amid the groans of the suffering ones who would not eat
any dinner, and had already set their breakfast outside.
After this I thought the view of the coast line was better
from one's berth. I also read one sermon and a novel ; the
scenes of one became inextricably involved with the senti
ments of the other, and vice versa. I slept " off and on."
The groans of a collapsed old gentleman who was separated
from me by a very thin board partition " made night hid
eous." The stewardess came in the morning and brought
me a sea biscuit, and I disposed of it as the old woman did
the corn whisky.
Tuesday at three p. m., when we reached Santa Barbara,
I was very glad. It is not only a lovely town but also a
lovely bay, in which there is not a ripple. My taste for the
sea had " rather lost its edge," as they say out here. This
little town is flooded with invalids, but I should fancy the
sea fogs would make it too moist a climate for consump
tives and rheumatic people.
Wednesday, May 15. — Breakfasted at six a. m., because
we had reached San Pedro (a name but no town). Here we

164 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
went on board of a foolish little tug which spent two hours
meandering about in such shallow water that we thought
every moment we would run ashore. At Wulmington,
. — a mockery of a village — we took the cars to Los Angeles
which place we reached at ten a. m. At the Pico House
we found very handsome accommodations and a genuine
breakfast ; it was eaten with a relish that only the land
can give. The hotel is built round a square in which a
fountain plays and some neglected flowers bloom. Spanish
seems to be the language of the house, although many
Americans and English gentlemen interested in the mines
are to be seen at the tables. The wool of Lower California
is the staple commodity of all the section, and attracts hun
dreds of buyers, sellers and speculators.
Out of the window one sees the customs of a land not
our own. Dashing down a street, that might be in Spain,
come four mounted men ; the heavy leather worked bri
dles, the high-pommeled saddles, the huge stirrup housings,
give a foreign look to the shoeless horses ; and the sombre
ros, and Spanish or Mexican cut to the clothes of the men,
the red bronze of their complexions, and the black crisp
curls, lead one to the inevitable conclusion that either they
are foreigners or you are. The dust in the street is eighteen
inches deep ; the sidewalks are covered with a verandah ;
the sun beats down upon the adobe houses with tlieir flat
roofs ; the Mexicans tie their horses to a long wooden bar
in front of the little wooden church opposite, and the cow
bell in its cupola clangs out a summons for something. It
is a Spanish funeral, and we attend without a moment's
delay. One fat and two lean old priests go through the
rites of the Romish church in Spanish-Latin, or Latin-Span
ish. The grieving donnas of the dead man's family weep
honest tears on black-bordered handkerchiefs, and sit behind

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 165
English crape veils of established thickness ; their dresses
are made precisely alike (five deep folds and an over skirt);
their brown wrists shine out between the sleeves and their.
single-buttoned gloves.
Suddenly there is a great stampede of the nondescript
vehicles and horsemen at the door, the coffin is hurried ontj
and' the funeral procession dashes off around the corner,
the frantic bell clatters off in a paroxysm of claps, and I
stand alone in the filthy little windowless room that is called
a church. I would moralize, but what is the use ? The
Senor had been the rich owner of a sheep ranch, and his
day was done. Evidently he was buried with more dispatch
than he had practiced in life ; but every one meant well, and
that covers all the short comings of the age now-a-days.
Then I picked m}' way down a Spanish street under the
long verandas and saw the butcher, the baker and the sad-
dlemaker pursuing in a lazy way their various trades ;
looked curiously into the sitting room or parlor of one of
these tradesmen and saw a white, book mnslin pillow or two
on the lounge, trimmed with cotton lace four inches deep ;
they were the only clean-looking things on the premises.
Walking several blocks through the Spanish quarter, I
made my way into one little shop where oranges and limes
were for sale. There was a low miserable table across one
end of the room, upon which was spread dried herbs, red
peppers, onions and beans, all of wliich were so covered
with dust that your imagination was obliged to aid your
sight. In one corner four bricks were set around a glowing
charcoal fire, on wliich bubbled and hissed two little tins
that looked like old lobster cans. The woman proprietress
of this not attractive menage had been dried, and smoked,
and dusted through successive cycles, but why the charcoal
had not poisoned her to death no one knows. This being

166 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
the land of orange groves, we found oranges were but a
dollar a dozen ; we did not invest in Spanish beans and red
peppers — they may have been cheaper.
The American portion of the town presents a very differ
ent appearance ; there the stores and shops are kept almost
exclusively by Jews, and are all well supplied with the
latest fashions in dry goods, millinery and hair goods, car
pets, mattings, etc. The grocery stores are excellent, the
chocolates, teas, coffees, nuts, olives, limes, etc., being the
very best.
Thursday, May 16. — This morning at nine o'clock our
entire party set off in three coaches to visit two of the most
celebrated orange groves and vineyards on the Peninsula.
Two large boxes of luncheon had been prepared for us, and
we were to make a day of it. As we drove out of the city
we saw here and there a few orange trees grouped about
the houses. Soon we forded a broad but shallow creek,
where wagons with ox and mule teams were standing to
cool; and then began a long drive over low sand hills cov
ered with a brown dried looking grass ; these are the sheep
ranches that are this year making their owners so rich. No
fences divide or define the limit of a man's possessions ;
scarcely a house is ever in sight — just these brown barren
hills. At last we came to one that had four four-feet-thick
stone walls running down it ; of course this struck us as
being very curious, and we stopped the coach to quiz the
driver. " Those are not stone fences, madam ; they are
sheep." And truly they were sheep grazing four abreast
in these straight lines down the hillside. I felt very much
about these poor creatures as Pat did when I reprimanded
him for not keeping the cow in the paddock (where it
was true the pasture was very short) : "And what cud
she do there, mum ? " was his pertinent reply ; " she cud

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 167'
look at the fince, mum, and that's all she cud do." Yet
these immense flocks live and thrive exceedingly upon
this stubble. They bear lambs twice a year, and are shorn
twice a year, and it's not counted much of a ranch if the
proprietor does not clear from sixty to a hundred thousand
dollars per annum. But it is a lonely, desolate life, that
palls dreadfully upon all who undertake it. We met a
young Frenchman who had been bookkeeper for an old
Spanish ranchero. His pay was $1,200 in gold, and the
board and lodgings of his wife and himself. "But," said
the poor young fellow, " I could not stand it ; I would
rather have gone to State prison for half the money."
On we bowled over hill after hill, seeing ever in the dis
tance the high summits of the Coast Range, whitened here
and there with patches of snow. These mountains stand
like a barrier of stone between the cold, keen sea breezes
that would otherwise sweep over and desolate the whole
peninsula of Lower California. They likewise water the
narrow strip of fertile ground that, like the valley of the
Nile, gives growth to the fruits that are so necessary to
the support as well as wealth of the region, pouring down
upon it during the night the heat which the mountainous
steeps have gathered from the sun's scorching rays, and per
fectly equalizing the temperature, so that the fruits of the
tropics come to the richest perfection in a climate where the
thermometer never falls below 40° Far. in winter, or rises
above 80° in summer. As we drive onward, no signs of any
respectable vegetation, save the eternal brown grass, is seen
upon these constantly recurring sand hills, over which we
struggle through powdery grit that follows our horses like
a cloud ; although occasionally huge cacti that looked like
lost spirits of the world of flowers glared at us, and held up
on miserable stalks or sticks, great knobs of greenish, slimy,

168 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
fiendish, vegetable flesh, all covered with vicious bristles.
Here and there they burst into yellow and brown poisonous
looking blossoms that oozed upon your hands a thick pestif
erous gum, if you ventured to pick them, and infected your
nostrils with a faint and sickening odor both deadly and
disgusting. In the shadow, or rather under the protection
of a sand hill, a large thicket of these horrid spectres had
started into being, and led one to think of Tennyson's line :
"Into the Valley of Death."
Or of John Bunyan, who makes poor Christian to say :
'• About the midst of this valley I perceived the mouthof
hell to be, and it stood also hard by the wayside ; the fiends
seemed to come nearer and nearer, but when they were
come almost even at him, he cried out with a most vehe
ment voice : ' I will walk in the strength of the Lord
God ! ' so they gave back and came no further."
It was more than passing strange that flowers should stir
one's soul with such a sense of the presence of devils and
damned spirits, and I longed for a dozen men with broad-
axes in tlieir hands to hew down and mash and mangle these
unsightly growths. Ever since the miracle of the banished
devils into the herds of swine, more or less of the curse has
clung to the pig ; and has the vegetable as well as the animal
world its scape-goat ? I wonder if Hawthorne was thinking
of cacti when he wrote Eapacini's Daughter, for to love
such a blossom would insure an unspeakable empoisonment.
The very dust that was poured into the carriage like a
Scotch mist disdained to rest upon these " blossoms ! " and
they shrank and withered in the heat into flabby masses of
corruption, until out of sympathy for my aversion, Mrs. D.
tossed thein out upon the roadside. I left them behind
me, it is true, but for half an hour I was haunted with the
hope that they would be trodden on and torn to pieces.

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 169
About half- past ten or eleven o'clock we came suddenly,
as it were, upon a picket fence— a low, shiftless concern, as
compared with fences at home — but it spoke of protection,
and entering a gate that was too forlorn for the premises of
a third-rate Michigan farmer, we were, in a moment more,
driving through groves of oranges, walnuts, figs and palms.
Here everything spoke of cultivation. Not a weed raised
its head, and for a mile each tree was set, as it were, into a
square bit of earth with a little wall of mould about it to
hold the water with which once a fortnight, in the fruit
season, its roots are drenched. We saw this on one side of
the road, and on the other, grape trees — for they did not
appear in the least like .vines. Fancy the leaves and short
branches of the grape bursting out of a trunk the size' of a
ten-year-old apple tree, and forming a head almost as thick
as that of an enormous cabbage.
A few moments after we turned in we were in sight of
Mr. Eose's house, a large, low, double mansion with shel
tering piazzas, over which scrambled and blossomed roses
far too large for beauty. They answered to my brother's
description of the middle-aged belles of London, as seem
ing "porter-fat." We sprang across a little rushing brook,
and stepping under the eaves of the porch were almost
within the square parlor of the house. Miss Eose, who had
been at the piano, came forward and welcomed us (utter
strangers that we were) in a pleasant, hospitable fashion ;
told us her father and mother had gone to San Francisco,
where, we afterwards learned, he had lost considerable upon
a horse of his, which was running in the spring races at
Sacramento. The mother was getting the family supplies.
The girl confessed that though very beautiful, their ranch
was lonely, and then said that her father had only been
cultivating it eleven years. She pointed with much pride
17

170 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
to portraits of her parents that hung upon the wall. How
blind is human affection ! I know that Mrs. Eose was a far
brighter and better looking woman, than the brick-dust and
brown representation of the female that looked out of that
frame. And as for Mr. Eose, his never was a faithful
portrait. Such a flat, stale, unprofitable looking man as
that, never had sense enough to locate, to say nothing of
putting in order, such a ranch as the one surrounding us.
Mr. Eose had been bankrupted in Texas in 1854, and
fifteen years ago he had not credit enough to buy a sack of
flour. This is considered the lowest condition of impecu-
niosity, and what Mrs. Eose did for bread for herself and
four children while Mr. Eose went to get honest and hon
orable possession of this place is not stated. He was a
much shrewder man than that picture would indicate, or he
would never have had sense enough to look up such a
stream of water as the one that now makes the wilderness
to blossom such extravagant roses.
Twelve years ago he bought two thousand acres of land
surrounding the " Mission San Gabriel." The mention of
this mission takes us back to the devoted old Spanish mis
sionaries, who, more than two centuries and a half ago (in
1615), made their way to this far-off spot — aye, more, who
appreciated at once that all this country needed in material
things to make it a paradise was water, and so devoted
themselves to seeking and finding the right streams upon
which to settle. They found one here, and built a conduit
thousands of feet long, that to this day is strong and firm
as the rocks themselves, and still conducts with its first
integrity the rushing torrents of water, that combined so
well with other advantages, to make Mr. Eose's fortune.
Here, too, they built a great church, or mission, a huge
oblong structure, with walls four feet thick, and a flat roof,

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 171
covered with ' tiles, which time and sunshine have warped
into as many curls and twists as an autumn leaf. Within
are no benches or seats of any kind ; and stupendous doors,
whose latches and hinges are a study, stand open day and
night. A tawdry altar was at one end, and the pictures
that for hundreds of miles I had dreamed of seeing, were
startling. Art was years ago, and I had thought that if they
sent their canvas saints such a long way surely they would
send good ones ; but alack and alas ! they were p'ale, fantas
tic, lean-faced, hopeless looking nondescripts, that might be
madonnas or men, and the winds had broken them loose
from their black -painted frames so that they flapped and*
flared at you in a very unbecoming manner. One exhausted
looking gentleman (or lady, it was hard telling which), was
hung opposite the door, so that every little breath of wind
would send a ripple over his face that rolled the eyes up in
an agony of despair and set the mouth off into a broad grin.
The effect was inexpressibly absurd, and I stood shaking
with laughter, till I noticed just -below a box, requesting
" aid for the repair and preservation of this mission."
Whatever my faith is (and I trust it is orthodox Presbyte
rian), I would have responded to this appeal if it had taken
what they call out here " my bottom dollar." Grand old
adventurers, they had planted the standard of the cross
under the shadow of these mountains ; they had taught lips
unused to prayer how to ask God's mercy and pity through
Jesus, His beloved ; and in my heart I bridged the centu
ries and struck hands with these men, honoring them as
faithful, self-sacrificing servants of the Highest. While we
stood looking upon their graves, wildly overgrown with
unfamiliar grasses, a couple of Greasers rode by and crossed
themselves, and muttered a mechanical pater noster.
At "last we tore ourselves away from this old ruin of a

172 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
mission and betook us to the orange groves. The trees
are quite lofty in height, and from twenty-five to thirty
feet in the spread. The trunks are not large, from
eight to ten inches in diameter, but the branches make a
thick, strong upward growth, dense and shining, that sets
off in bold relief the large, round orange-colored fruit,
which we gathered from the ladened limbs without the
aid of steps or ladder.
I never could endure an orange; it is either a dry,
pulpy, stale chip, or a sour, fermented affair that disap
points me in some way. Hence I was loath to taste the
great yellow globe that I held in my hand ; but a penknife
soon severed the peel into sections, and then — well, then, I
ate six in succession, and never mean to eat another unless
I can get it ripe from the trees. The freshness, the dainty
odor, the juice, the pulp, changing into a rich gelatinous
sweet that melted away and slipped down your throat with
out eventually making the least impression on your stomach,
are not to be described, simply experienced.
It was the very last of " the season," and John Chinaman
duplicated himself on every side, and waved his solemn,
sad, dispirited pig-tail with every orange he gathered. At
a little distance the trees seemed to bear two kinds of fruit,
here an orange and there a Celestial ; but the boxes on the
ground and the sharp, quick counting and filling that was
carried on by American or English hands meant business.
Several boxes were bought by our party at a cost of five
dollars the hundred oranges, and we to transport them to
Los Angeles. The Chinese laborers receive eighteen
dollars " and find themselves." It is a mercy they can, as
Mrs. Partington might say, for they are alike as two peas
in a pod, and no intelligent mortal1 could find one if he
once got mixed with his brethren. The Greaser, who is a

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 173
hybrid between the Spaniard and the native Indian of the
Peninsula, gets a little higher pay, but the American skilled
laborer receives forty dollars a month in gold.
The orange is a fruit of long growth ; eleven months it
takes to reach perfection, and these very trees from off
wliich we gathered the well-ripened fruit were white with
bud and blossom which will not reach maturity until March
and April next.
The English walnut is cultivated with great success at
this ranch, and makes most rapid growth ; indeed it seems
hard to realize that these trees are only eleven years from
the graft. The fig trees interested me wonderfully, per
haps because- their leaves formed the first garments of the
race. If they were still the staple for the habiliments of
the human family, I would agree to do the sewing for
myself and five children in twenty minutes.
Our drivers warned us that we had yet to go to Wilson's,
which is another superb orange grove and vineyard, and we
accordingly bade good-bye to the very intelligent as well as
polite foreman of Mr. Eose, and set out to see the results
of a little different style of cultivation. Striking across
country upon a road, that however gave no variety to the
scenery, three miles of driving brought us to Wilson's.
This celebrated ranch is far older than that of Eose, and
has within its precincts a little lakelet upon which Oakland
county would smile contemptuously, but such is the value
of water that here it is worth far more than a gold mine.
The house stands upon the roadside, and from it, too, we
heard the sound of the piano. Here we were to lunch, and
betaking ourselves to the lakeside through a vineyard that
looked precisely like a young orchard, we explored with
interest the contents of our tin lunch-boxes, while Mr.W. and
Will picked half a bushel of oranges that were to serve as

174 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
dessert. Chicken, tongue, sandwiches and cake disappeared,
and the oranges followed, but they were not the sweet,
dainty things we had tasted at Mr. Eose's ; still they were
nice, very nice, and again the party averaged half a dozen
apiece without inconvenience. Here we gathered huge
bunches of jasmine, white, and yellow ; and scarlet pome
granates, with an occasional flower that was entirely unfa
miliar, and reveled in a gorgeous tropical luxuriance of
foliage. Mr. Wilson also was absent from home, but his
man of business took much pains and pride in showing us
the wine cellars, they being the great curiosity of this
ranch. He was an educated German who had been
employed for some years in the wine pressing business of
Kelley's Island. The vaults were filled with casks and tuns
of ripening juice, that he told us were all sold to a New
York house at a dollar the gallon. Eeversing the Oriental
custom of the best wine at the first of the feast, he pre
sented me with the poorest. It was poor indeed — a sour,
raw, and slightly bitter decoction that might have some but
not many of the characteristics of claret. No doubt this
is " doctored " into something quite different by the " New
York house." From this he went to Hock, Port, Angelica,
Sweet Catawba, etc., but everything tasted crude, and was
not unlike the little book in the Apocalypse in its effect
upon the stomach. In the center of the vault stood a stu
pendous cask containing four _ thousand nine hundred and
some gallons — it would be shorter to say five thousand, but
I suppose our guide was like the boy who killed ninety-nine
blackbirds at one shot, and declined to make it even figures
because he was too conscientious to tell an untruth for one
blackbird ! Be that as it may, it was large enough to have
drowned our whole party comfortably — indeed there were
many " tuns," in which a winey grave could have been

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 175
found. In some of these a slim mortal might have dropped
through the bung-hole.
Ere long our drivers warned us that if we expected to be
at Los Angeles in time to dress for dinner we " must be
under way." The day had seemed too lovely to end — too
peaceful amid those perfect trees to be brought to a termi
nation by a coach and pair — and yet the immutable law Qf
change ruled here as elsewhere, and by five o'clock we were
rolling quietly forward toward Los Angeles. Suddenly off
whizzed a wheel — the driver sprang from -the box and
unfastened his horses. The inmates of the coach got them
selves out as best they could, and we all stood viewing the
cause of the disaster in a stupid, appalled fashion. Without
thinking of the proprieties or conventionalities of life (I
always do forget them till afterwards), I stepped forward,
relieved the driver of the reins, and left him free to help
Mr. W. in seeing what could be done, which proved to*be
exactly nothing. Mr. McM. must have been provided with
an eye in the back of his head, for though nearly half a
mile ahead of us, he saw our mishap, and, laughing heartily
at my attitude, returned to aid us. Mrs. W. and myself
took places in his carriage, while Mrs. D. went back to join
the remainder of our company. We had yet five miles to
drive before we reached the city, and the fine, sandy dust,
impalpable as powder, was just two feet deep all the way.
A clear, fresh, pleasant breeze sprang up and sifted this
upon us till we were glad to see Los Angeles in the dis
tance. Once there, a bath and general brushing soon fresh
ened us for a hearty dinner.
Friday, May 17. — Was positively tired out to-day, even
feverish and ill, and kept my bed. Towards evening I
bethought me of an old prescription given me by a friend :
"When you feel just as bad as you can, get up and dress

176 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
yourself nicely, and then do something." I followed it
with benefit and profit, for in the large parlor of the house,
I fell in with a. lady and a gentleman with whom 1 had a
most agreeable conversation. He had " no style," as peo
ple say now-a-days, nor she either. A tall, slim, shambling
looking man, with a Yankee twang, but good and expres
sive face. His wife was without an over-skirt !!! and had
her hair brushed straight down over her ears and upon the
sides of her face ; but it was a sweet, expressive, thought
ful countenance — and when he offered me a seat by the
open window, I declined it with great propriety. I sat
quietly awaiting an advance from the lady. Of course it
came, and then we drifted into the usual questions. The
gentleman (as Mr. D. learned afterwards, was one of the
first lawyers and jurists in San Francisco, etc.) had lived
over twenty years in California. The climate of San Fran
cisco did not agree with his wife ; she had severe bronchial
troubles, and he had bought her an orange ranch near San
Diego, where, with her two daughters and one son, she
passed almost her entire time. The sweet looking English
woman on our boat had gone down to her as governess for
these young girls ; while she had come up by stage to Los
Angeles to meet her husband, and spend three days with
him during an interval of court, and was very curious to
know of me all about the appearance of the new teacher,
etc. He had spent some little time in Michigan years ago ;
was a cousin of the C.'s ; had crossed Lake Erie in 1840
with my father, and had been led by him on that occasion,
and always since, to pay marked attention to certain atmos
pheric phenomena. Here followed a long and most delight
ful analysis (for it was that) of the climate of Southern
California, that I only regret I cannot reproduce on paper.
"It was so different from ordinary lands that it had excep-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 177
tionable experiences — for instance, grain planted upon hills,
utterly un watered, would give wonderful crops. Lands
that to all appearances were waste, must yet produce the
bread of the country. At San Diego much money had
been spent in sinking artesian wells, but they were always
a failure ; some boulder, hundreds of feet below the sur
face, would blast all prospects of water. That there was
ever at work a grand law of natural compensation, and
Lower California was developing it in the most surprising
manner." Then she took up the burden of the tale, and
said that " the ranch life was sad and desolate (evidently
she carried a divided heart — her husband so far away dur
ing so many months of the year) ; that in her case the
climate was just what she needed, but that even books
could not make her loneliness anything more than toler
able." At this juncture a telegram was brought Judge C,
and she exclaimed, with terror in her voice, " It cannot be
the children ! " It proved to be stocks, and he told me
much of the history of the stock speculations and excite
ment I had witnessed on our arrival in California.
Ere I was aware, bed-time had arrived, and Mr. D. had
come to see if I had any need or want unsupplied. I told
him of my pleasant evening, and in his droll way he
inquired :
" See here, Mrs. S.; do you speak to everybody you
meet ? "
"No, sir; I do not."
"Well," said he, "how do you manage it? Everybody
speaks to you."
" I am sure I cannot tell, except that wherever I am, I
do my best to look agreeable, and when people speak to
me to show that I am genuinely interested ; hence I not
only see the country, but the inhabitants thereof."

178 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Saturday, May 18. — The morning has been devoted to
a walk about Los Angeles. The view of the town from
the high western hills is extremely pretty ; rows of terrace
houses clothe but do not adorn the steep ascent. On the
hill-top lies the Protestant burial ground — a rather forsaken
looking enclosure, with here and there a marble or painted
pine slab, to mark the resting-place of some poor pilgrim
" Who by the wayside fell and perished,
Weary with the strife of life. "'
In such a spot as this, one realizes how the pioneers of a
new country suffer wreck — William J., of  , Duchess
county, New York, aged 37 years ; James S., of  — , Flor
ida, in the 35th year of his age. Every State in the Union
has here at least a representative, perhaps of its best blood
and spirit. The usual brown, seedy, short grass, if you
can call it such, fringes these desolate graves, and above
them waves the plume-like pepper-tree, with all its flimsy,
evanescent, feathery foliage. It seems as if one sharp
wind would sweep away these little sandy mounds, and the
trees that mark them, so that these unsung heroes would
not even leave a grave behind them. What odds — suffice
it, that the good men do, lives after them, Shakspeare to the
contrary notwithstanding.
Perhaps the most striking object as you look down upon
the town is a great red " Gas Works," that, like offenses,
 was rank,
And smelt to Heaven.
An opera house, some Protestant churches, anda number
of stores, mark the dividing line between the Spanish and
the American portion of the town.
At half-past three we left Los Angeles, retracing our
steps with about the same interest that marked the progress

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 179
of that King of France, who, with forty thousand men,
marched up the hill, and then marched down again. And
yet there is always something to see, even iii low flat land
where green grass grows. Here were nice looking people
getting off at a little shed that was called a station, and
going over this trackless sea of grass on mustang ponies or
horses to some house or shelter far out of sight. They
were probably well-to-do rancheros, but they did not look
very light-hearted. The climate is delicious, but in a little
time I am satisfied its monotony would stagnate all the
" go " in my body and mind.
At half-past six p. m. we found the Orizaba waiting for
the train. The captain had supper held back for our arrival,
and an egotistical traveler could easily have flattered him
or herself that all this was intended as individual courtesy.
Sunday, May 19. — How I miss my quiet home Sabbaths.
This on the boat was as respectfully deferred to as one
could expect, but there was no marked recognition ; not
even a hymn was sung, and on that quiet, lovely sea I
longed to hear my mother's voice in
" Sailor on the lonely billow,
Far, far at sea."
At four p. m. the waves began to roll higher, and sensi
tive people took to their berths, where I remained, more
frightened than hurt by sea-sickness, till we crossed the
bar and entered the Golden Gate. Here the boundless
ocean narrows into a bay, and San Francisco comes in sight.
On Monday at half-past four we were once more at home
at the " Grand." Our rooms were ready, the attendants
glad to see us, and our letters on the table. As Mr. D,
remarked, " This is something like, and it's a great pity our
hotels in the States could not take a lesson or two ; no hotel
clerk to cock his eye and look contemptuously at you over

180 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
his ruffled sham front, to receive your order and deliver it
again to a darkey, in a tone that rouses all the angry pas
sions of your heart — I think his words were, most infernal
mad — 0r if he is polite to a lady, it's a politeness two
degrees more insufferable than his insolence."
The hotel table is not wonderful, but it is good enough ;
the building is charmingly ventilated, and their head peo
ple, clerks, waiters, etc., become personally acquainted with
yon without your being aware of it.
Tuesday, May 21. — The grand conundrum of a Califor
nia trip is how to get to the Yosemite ? What to take to
the Yosemite? What to wear in the Yosemite? What
route is to be preferred ? Will you visit the Calaveras, or
the Mariposa big trees, or both ? Will yon go and return
one way ? This is better. Will you go one way and return
another ? This is best. Will you take the public stage or
a private coach ? You can do this. You cannot do that.
Mr. W. has talked, and talked, and talked. Little groups
and knots of people stand round and talk. Have you been
to Honseworth's (he has the agency of one route) ? Have
you seen Smith ? or Eobinson ? or Jones ? who have the
management of three other routes. Can you get in ?
" Inspiration Point is blockaded with snow ! " " Passen
gers have started in two weeks ago on the Coulterville road,
and nothing has been heard of them since!" Shall you
wear trowsers ? Would you take two dresses ? At last a
definite answer to all these questions became imperative.
Mr. D. called the party together and made a characteristic
speech : " The big Injun of California is the Yosemite
Valley, but how to see him is a question. If you go by
Clark & Hatch's, you must ride twenty-five miles on horse
back in one day ; if you go by a certain other route, it is
thirty miles in one day ; if you take the Coulterville route,

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 181
you must stage it two days ; if you go to the Calaveras
trees, it will take another. You can get in on a new route
by Jacksonville. It will cost from $100 to $150 any way ;
you may save ten dollars or more by going by stage ; your
expenses by coach are from three to five dollars a day, and
take your time ; somebody say something. Mrs. S., what
do you wish to do ? " Not being accustomed to public
speaking, I said briefly, that we had no choice. " Come,"
said Mr. D., "that's pleasant; here are four women with
no choice ; I see how it will be — when we get into the
toughest of it (and I tell yqp, to start with, it's a tough
trip), you will all begin to say, ' I wish we had done so and
so.' Now if you have any wish, express it, or forever after
hold your tongues ; don't lay back and have no choice ;
have' a choice, and stick to it. Now, Mrs. S., will you make
another remark ? " Whereupon Mrs. S. did remark in this
wise : "I have studiously ignored all unpleasant knowledge
of this trip ; my orders at home were not to venture upon
it, if it was likely to prove rough ; I do not know anything
about it ; I do not wish to know anything about it ; in my
opinion the way to take this trip is to take it blind. Mr.
W. has thorned me with information, and now you are
determined to do the same ; I expect to be murdered, but I
propose to accompany you. What earthly use is a brother-
in-law if he cannot get one into the Yosemite Valley?"
(Great applause.) This being everybody's else 'sentiment,
Mr. D. forthwith engaged a carriage to meet us at Milton,
and to-morrow morning we start.
The afternoon was devoted to seeing the Chinese stores,
which are full of curions things of no earthly use ; their
charges are high and their wares not particularly to my
taste. In point of variety at Van tine's in New York, you
can get more beautiful and quite as characteristic goods.

182 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
This evening Dr. K. called.
Thursday, May 23. — We were rapped out of bed at six
o'clock this morning, and after a hasty breakfast, i. e. gorg
ing one's self with unchewed food, like any camel of the
desert, were packed into the Grande coach and off again.
Not, however, before I had waylaid the mail boy and
secured my letters. I looked over his shoulder as he was
sorting them on the table, and, seizing two, remarked,
" Those are mine," and was away. Poor, astonished fel
low ! He made a little rush after me, and expressed a
wish to be "sure it was all right," but his effort was futile,
for we were under way and trailing through the uncleanly
streets, damp and reeking with the night dews, to the Cen
tral Pacific depot. To get out of San Francisco invariably
involves "crossing the bay. The Oakland ferry, a huge
steamboat that takes its time, lay idly at the dock swallow
ing the tremendous crowd that poured into its mighty
cabin. What a simple affair it was to identify the tourists,
the rancheros, the miners ; and we were quite interested
until the boat swung loose and steamed out against the
bitter, cutting wind.
Oakland is to San Francisco what Brooklyn is to New
York, but struck us as appearing rather more inaccessible,
inasmuch as after the ferry has disposed of you as the
whale did of Jonah, you go nearly three miles by rail on
pile made ground ere you reach the solid foundation that
bears up the town. By eleven o'clock we were at Lathrop,
where they told us we could get dinner, but being in no
mood for that meal at that moment we let the golden
opportunity slip. " Eat when anything is offered," is a
safe rule to follow in this country. Here we changed
cars for Stockton ; there again we changed cars for Milton,
where we would be met by a private carriage that would

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 183
take us forward. At Stockton Mr. D., who had donned a
a wide-awake hat and looked generally equal to anything,
was accosted by an individual in a white beaver "tile,"
with the nap brushed the wrong way. In a semi-genteel
fashion he inquired, "Are you going to the big trees?"
His question was promptly answered by another, " Do I
look like a man going to the big trees ?" A critical glance,
and the white beaver replied frankly, " Well, I should
say you did, and I've got the horses." But after all, a
moment's conversation led to Mr. D.'s asserting, "You've
missed it this time; I'm not your customer." After this
we knew that there would be no difficulty when we reached
Milton, for Mr. D.'s general " big tree air " was better than
a guide book.
In the train, cards of invitation were circulated for a
dinner at Peters, which proved to be the most palpable
fraud ever perpetrated by the " Heathen Chinee." The
food was execrable, and the Chinamen's long nails and dis
gusting pigtails make me shudder as I think of them. One
wretch perched himself behind K.'s chair, and from time to
time shrieked at her, "Kee, koh, kee, koh." He was not
to be annihilated by a glance. Again and again these mys
tical syllables were fired into her ear or exploded at her as
if they were a new kind of Chinese fire cracker or torpedo.
At last Mr. D., coming out in a fresh character, that of
"an interrupter," as Mrs. Partington would say, informed
us that " That Chinaman was inquiring whether K. would
have tea or coffee." She gave a superb toss to her head
and replied, " Neither." But as that was not a word in his
vocabulary, he persistently "Kee, kohed," until to get rid
of him she replied, "Tea." Eushing away, he returned
with a cup of the boiling liquid, in which his yellow thumb
was plunged far above the first knuckle.

184 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Here Mr. .Dunning, a tall, thin, gentle looking Jehu, had
marked Mr. D. for his own, and was on time at two p. m.
with a long, three-seated beach wagon or covered rockaway,
into which eight people and eight portmanteaus were
stowed ; and there was a change of misery. The road
was like the little girl in the rhyme, who
" When she was good was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid,"
And it was bad the greater part of the way, and we were
tired, and starved, and hot, and dusty. We limited our
imagination to reaching Murphy's. Eeally I can not tell
how the country looked, for every time I opened my eyes
the stage gave a jolt that bumped the sight out of them and
the hope out of my heart. Our four horses tugged us up
a hill over loose and rattling stones that rolled down behind
us, and then down a hill where infantile boulders went
before and insisted upon being underneath our wheels at
least ten times apiece. We were not acclimated to staging.
Two hundred miles of this sort of thing was a ghastly
future ; but we held our peace and endured life from
minute to minute, occasionally inquiring, " How many
miles is it to Murphy's?" The reply was never encour
aging. As day declined another carriage came to meet us. It
was some misunderstanding between the drivers, but Mr.
W. and Will availed themselves of it, and jumping in,
praised and bribed the young whip until he got them to
the hotel a half hour before us. Night closed in upon us
and we were still lurching our way forward. The country
was barren, forsaken, forlorn. We knew every bone and
muscle of our frame better than any anatomist, be he whom
he may. With us anatomy was illustrated by aches.
As the moon rose Mr. Dunning gave a flourish of his
whip, and making the thong stand out like a finger-post,

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 185
remarked, "There's 'Angels." He could not mean the
heavenly visitants who are perpetually heading one off from
mischief. Indeed, angels seemed to be a frequent and
familiar name this way, to wit, Angel Island, Los Angeles.
Angels — what angels? Oh, if we had only been angels,
Saint Cecilia angels, that could have waved a pair of gull
like wings and wafted ourselves over the stones and boul
ders and hills generally, without the shaking and bumping
and thumping that for the last five hours we had endured :
what an improvement it would have been on stage locomo
tion ! Alas, we were not angels; only stiff and sore mor
tals who were not content where we were comfortable.
All at once Mr. D.'s stern voice broke out :
" Then Abner Dean of Angels raised a point of order, when
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen,
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor,
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more."
" If Abner' s there let' s call. " " How is he now ? " " I've
known him these four years." So had we all. This rhyme
of the poet, the droll sally of our patient protector, wakened
us to new life ; it was better than a letter of introduction to
Dunning himself. He told us how Bret Harte had lived
among these hills and worked these mines and studied these
miners ; how " he was pretty generally correct in the main."
The road ceased to be long and rough ; it was like " the
beguilements in the boats," in that exquisite story of Dick
ens', "The wreck of the Golden Mary," as we listen to
verse after verse of this poet of the mines.
All at once we came to a toll-bar that seemed to have
sprung suddenly out of the earth. A morbid desire to
know the worst forced me to inquire once more :
" How far is it to Murphy's? "
18

186 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
" Four hundred " —
" Miles, of course ! I expected it ; " and I thought of that
class of men " who keep a pike to awenge themselves on
human nature."
" Four hundred yards, ma'am ; don' t be down-hearted "
and he laughed a gurgling, jolly laugh that waked the
horses and Dunning, who, bringing his long, snake-like lash
to bear upon his four-in-hand, dashed them into the town
with a flourish and crash and bang that brought people out
of their stores and houses to see him rein up at Murphy's.
There stood Mr. W. and Will with a pair of steps ready
to aid us in dismounting ; our rooms were in order and our
suppers under way. The hotel was a high brick store-look
ing edifice, with iron shutters for doors and windows. A
nice, motherly, elderly woman came to my room and
brought me hot water and fresh towels ; and said this would
be our worst day, every one was tired when he got there,
but rested when he left.
The supper was delicious — no Chinamen in sight — and
after it I stepped out on to the pavement and into the
moonlight to take a view of the town. It is considered
quite a place ; may have four or five hundred inhabitants
and a number of empty houses. A gentleman handed me
a chair, and in a moment more inquired, "Are you not a
sister of Dr. S. P. D. ? " I bowed in acknowledgment, and
found I was conversing with Mr.' Jay H., of Houghton,
Lake Superior, an old classmate of my brother's. If I only
had Mr. Mansfield's voice and presence I might sing with
equal expression, "Michigan, my Michigan." Her sons
and daughters meet in every portion of the globe.
Friday, May 24. — What a sleep, what a rest, last night's
was ! How fresh and fair the day opened ! We took life
leisurely as compared with yesterday, and did not make

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 187
such an early start for the big trees as on many another
occasion. Eight o'clock found us rolling out of Jthe town
and bumping over the gold diggings that channel and
tunnel the turnpike. Presently we struck into another
road, and then the beauty of earth, air and sky took full
possession of us. Up one long slope after another, through
sunny, green pasture lands, that were dotted here and there
with zamias and wild oak bushes. Gradually all grew more
dense and strong; the massive trunks and comparatively
light foliage of the trees brought back the oak openings of
Kalamazoo, as they were in my early girlhood ; yet no signs
of habitation save the road we followed.
Occasionally man, with his usual perverse desire to do
wonders, had sawn down a tree, for what purpose none can
tell, except it was to prove that he was monarch of all he
surveyed ; for the huge mass would lie as it fell, and in that
dry, pure air there was but very little decay. One immense
sugar pine not less than twent}'-five feet in circumference
had been sawn down with what they call a whip saw and
then cut into sections. It was larger than any tree I had
ever seen in my life, and Dunning rested his horses while
we speculated upon its size. A drive of twenty miles
brought us to a large hotel handsomely located and looking
fresh and fair among the trees that surrounded it. Two,
called the Twin Brothers, stood as sentinels on each side
of the road, and challenged our approach. They were
the veritable " big trees " of the country, but they stood
so tall and stately that they did not strike one as being
so huge.
It was twelve m., and we waited a few moments for dinner
before setting out on our quest for the grove. The house
was extremely comfortable, the dinner very nice and nicely
served. Many a spot of much more pretension was not

188 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
nearly so acceptable a resting place. We had the mountain
snow for ice and mountain mutton for meat, but the vege
tables staged it as we had done. The gentlemen desiring to
enjoy their cigars and the prospect, tilted their chairs on
the piazza, but Mrs. D. and I strolled down to a large sum
mer house that was built upon the stump of a big tree, which
for some vandal reason had been cut down. The building
was pavilion-shaped ; its diameter twenty-four feet one and
one-half inches, in height eighteen feet, and the stump stood
five feet above the ground. We talked across this hall, we
walked around it, we studied the floor which of course was
the solid stump, and then went up a pair of steps and stood
upon a section of this same tree which was still lying on
the ground. It was like going up to the roof of some
grand public building and looking down upon the houses
around. The gentlemen sent a guide for us, and we started for
the grove, which is a quarter of a mile away. The ground
was somewhat swampy, with here and there a little stream
meandering through. When at length we came upon these
mighty monsters of vegetation, and viewed them with an
educated eye, between thirty and forty standing from two
hundred and forty to three hundred and twenty-five feet
above the ground, and measuring from forty to eighty feet
in circumference, we took to hexameters.
" This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks
Stand like Druids of old with voices sad and prophetic ;
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
This is the forest primeval, but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe when he hears in the woodland the voice of the
huntsman."
Had there indeed been human hearts in this wilderness?
Were these forests " primeval ? " '

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 189
Dr. K. had said to me, less than forty-eight hours before,
" Those big trees are the greatest wonder. The Yosemite
Valley can be accounted for by an earthquake or a volcanic
commotion, but the big trees have been growing century
after century; with the Anno Domini they burst into
being ; steadfastly, silently, through eighteen centuries they
have struck their roots into the earth and swelled their
mighty trunks and lifted higher and higher their slender
branches. Year by year they have added the little ring that
marks their age, till now they number more than eighteen
hundred birth-lines. I sometimes think they are ante-dilu-
vians, for there is nothing in vegetation or in nature that is
equal or like unto them."
With these words still ringing in my ears, I clambered
up some thirty feet or more, and walked a block or so on
the huge side of the Father of the Forest, as he lay prone
upon the earth. Then I found another that one could ride
through as if it were a tunnel, and we saw one measured
with a cord, and found by actual present measurement that
it was sixty-five feet in circumference. Then I had a
fierce little debate with a cranky, troublesome elf who is
forever contradicting me and upsetting all my poetic and
aesthetic apprehensions of " the good, the true and the beau
tiful." He said to me :
" Do yon believe that those trees are coeval with the cre
ation ?"
I thought of the flood, and Noah, and the extraordinary
state of things that first raven found when he went out to
seek his fortune, and I answered meekly enough :
" No, I do not."
Said the sprite (whose name is Common Sense) :
" Do yon believe that these trees burst into being when
the rocks were rent at Calvary ?"

190 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
" It would be a grand thought that these mute monsters
had breasted the centuries to testify in their dumb way to
eighteen hundred years of life."
" Would it be a true thought ?"
Then I shook the wretch with not a little asperity, and
said : " Hold your graceless tongue." But he went on :
"Are they such an exceptional species? Are there not
young big trees growing very rapidly all through these for
ests ? Are they not enough like the red wood of the coun
try to be nearly identical in color and grain of timber ?
How do you think these trees compare as monstrosities with
the squashes and cucumbers of a climate that has no season
for rest in its vegetable growths ? Ah, Mrs. S., don't
believe any poetical trash ; stick to facts, stick to facts."
And so I walked about viewing these wonderful red
woods as grand massive facts of mammoth vegetation, not
antiquity. Saturday, May 25. — Bade adieu to Murphy's at seven a. m.
It was a comfortable resting-place — may we never do worse.
Staging is staging — no one need tell me after this that
lie went by stage !! from Carlisle, Penn., to New York
City, or from Penn Yan, Yates Co., N. Y., to Pittsfield,
Mass. We have gone by stage too — the martyrs of to-day
are just as sore (I think a little sorer) than those of half a
century ago, and hills are hills all the world over ; but the
foot hills of the Sierras are, in the language of the country,
" a touch beyond." Hour by hour we climb and climb ;
then for thirty minutes we will tear down hill at a rate that
would warrant us in never expecting anything less pleasant
than total annihilation; then we climb again, and zig-zag
our way up a narrow little ledge of road, five feet broad,
that clings to the side of the mountain ; if we look over this
small rim, we see a straight, side, down, down, down, hun-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 191
dreds and hundreds of feet. There are eight inches, be the
same more or less, between us and " unmitigated smash ; "
but Dunning trims his wheels with the brake, and his
steady, sure-footed four-horse team plod safely round every
curve and angle, while we slowly and steadily mount higher
and higher. The country is lovely, and very " various" in
its scenery ; sometimes we are shadowed in by dense high
forests, then again we are gradually taking a down slope
into lovely fruitful valleys, so peaceful and deliciously quiet,
that I begin to dream once more that dream of my girlhood,
which, I am sorry to say, I confided to the party — "A Cali
fornia Eanch." Mr. W. opens the conversation with —
" Mr. D., there would be a grand chance for Mrs. S.'s
ranch." " Yes," is the reply, " she was born to shine in solitude.
News or friends' faces would never trespass here, and these
roads be good discipline for Dr. S.; three miles an hour
would break his spirit. Sentiment might grow monotonous
with some, but not with her ; it would not be much of an
improvement to me on being dead and buried, but for a
lady with a vocation for a ranch, of course, it is another
thing." And then my ideal life is so effectually ventilated by the
common sense gibes of the whole party, that I am truly
thankful when we come in sight of a house — a two-story
frame building — there's no romance in that — that is inhab
ited by one man and one woman. She evidently is not a
person who exerts herself ; and takes no interest in our
reaching Jacksonville. The road flats out here and there,
and is so grown over with grass that we are not at all
certain about our getting out of this Happy Valley. Dun
ning has never been on this route before, but he " guesses
it's all right," and chirps to his leader, and adds to his voice

192 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
the persuasiveness of the lash, so that ere long we are at
the ferry. A sharp turn of the road brings us in full sight
of the Stanislaus, or as it is pronounced, " Stanislow." A
ferryman's tiny little house nestles away under the edge of
the hillside ; a fig tree or two, shades it ; grape vines grow
here and there ; the, sun beats pitilessly on one's head, and
the rushing rapid river shoots past like an arrow from a
bow. It is ten o'clock, and the Scylla of this solitude
informs us that we must wait an hour ere we can attempt
to cross — that the river must fall four inches before it is
safe ; the melted snows of yesterday have raised the water
and given such impetus to the stream, that we must wait ;
so we wander forth to sail boats and study the current.
Dunning plays seven-up or poker, with the ferryman, and
beats him to the tune of two dollars and a-half, just our
ferriage. By this time our Scotch Scylla thinks we might
as well try to go over. The ferry is a long, flat-bottomed
boat, that is moved by means of a chain stretched across the
river, upon which a pulley runs in such a way that the boat
seems to get forward without much difficulty. I have seen
the same sort of ferry on the upper Mississippi, but here it
looked far more dangerous, and some one said, as the boat
swept into the stream with us :
" Know the old ford on the Fork that .nearly got Flanigan's leaders,
Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low water ;
Well, it ain't six weeks ago that me and the Jedge and his nevey
Struck for that ford in the night, and the rain and the water all
round us ;
Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek jest a bilin';
Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river ;
I had the gray, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey, Chiquita;
And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of the canon,
Lickity, lickity switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita
Buckled right down to her work, and afore I could yell to her rider,
Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standin',
And twelve hundred dollars of horseflesh a driftin' to thunder! "

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA.' 193
At this point of the poem it looked very much as if we
were going the way of Chiquita ; the mad, angry torrent
tugged at the boat and swept it endwise into the stream;
the impetus of every yellow drop bade fair to make our
fate that of the " Nevey : "
" Drownded, I reckon — leastways, he never kem back to deny it."
And yet there was a grand excitement in our peril.
Every eye gleamed, and the whole party would have been
swept under without a shriek. The very horses snuffed their
danger, and Dunning stood ready at one carriage, and Mr.
Hubbell at the other, to loosen them and give them a
chance — but they did not need it ; a few moments sufficed
for the passage of the most dangerous part of the river, and
in another ten minutes we were staging it once more.
At twelve m. reached Sonora, and lunched on very nnpleas-"
ant bread and cheese and uncommonly solid pie. Here our
horses were to be baited, and I went comfortably to bed
and slept an hour, so that I was fresh for the gold dig
gings of Shaw's Flat, Columbia, Poverty Bar, and the
Gold Springs Vineyards.
I do not know how to express the value of water in this
climate, or to tell what it does. A single little stream, four
or six feet broad and one or two deep, will make the
wilderness blossom like the rose ; a town grows up around
it, and vines, vegetables and human beings flourish, wine
cellars are built, and peace and prosperity reigns.
As to the gold diggers, theirs is a miserable existence ;
it is a surface work uncommonly like ditch digging, and
while, of course, it was curious, it was very disenchanting.
At last we reached Jacksonville. I do not know why
this should have been such a point of approach in our day's
work, unless it was that just a little beyond it we crossed
the Tuolumne Eiver — " Two-wallow-me " is the unexpected

194 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
pronunciation of the name of this beautiful stream. The
ferry was almost precisely like that on the Stanislaus, but
the river is narrower and looks deeper. As we were
waiting for the boat, I noticed a rather elderly looking
miner, with steel-grey eyes, watching ns very intently.
There was an ease and grace in the man's manner entirely
at variance with his checked shirt and boots to his hips.
He was quick to see that I appreciated his best points, for
as we passed and re-passed him in a rapid walk on the piers,
he at last made bold to say :
" Are you going to the Valley ? "
" We are."
" You will find it cold on the higher Sierras ; the path-
master has been down here and says the snow is still eight
feet deep, and that the men who have been digging out the
trail are all snow-blinded, while they have eight miles yet
to do. He came down to get his blue goggles."
"Well, my friend," I made answer, "we are greatly
obliged for your information, but we are going forward all
the same. I never cross a bridge till I come to it."
The steel-grey eyes gleamed and flashed like merry light
ning at us, and I bade him a smiling adieu, determined to
keep this extraordinary statement to myself.
On the ferry, I noticed a miner who led on a forlorn
white nag, and strapped to the back of the saddle was a
pair of heavy hob-nailed boots, with legs long enough for a
son of Anak.
Crossing the river is truly a new sensation ; seeing the
dash of the water, feeling the rapidity and force of the
current, even the peculiar ferriage, in these days when a
woman's journeying is invariably in " a first-class carriage
of ease," had the freshness of agreeable novelty. But too
soon we were out of the sight of water, and staging for-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 195
ward through the silent forest — silent as death. The still
ness is so subtle that it enters into one's soul, and gives a
vague, mysterious awe to the motionless shadows of the
over-arching trees. No birds sing, no wind blows, no squir
rel or rabbit flies before us — no life, save the vegetable life
of this rich soil, is presented to us in any shape; all is quiet,
with a quietness that makes one think of those Sabbaths
with their " Sacred, high, eternal noon."
No one attempts to account for this utter absence of liv
ing creatures from these Sierras ; in fact, from almost all
California, but they are conspicuously absent. As the
day began to decline, we again crossed the Tuolumne, this
time upon a bridge, where the carriage stopped for some
moments that we might have a satisfactory view of the
falls, which are very fine. Then we began an ascent of
fifteen hundred feet, to the mile. At the base of this hill
we stopped for breath, ere mounting so suddenly, and saw
a pretty little farm house, and a large flock of goats of some
peculiar variety; Dunning said "it was a speculation."
Perhaps his history would be like that of Briggs, of
Tuolumne, who "Busted himself in White Pine, and
Blew out his brains down to Frisco."
That was the way with most of them.
The sun was sinking behind a huge cliff at the west of
us, and its rays slanted in golden bars across the narrow
road up which we were to climb. The air came with a
chilly softness from the mountains, and the weary horses
plodded step by step upward and onward. The men of the
party said they would lighten the draught upon them, and
so Mr. W., Will, and Dunning started off on foot, leaving
Mr. D. to drive.

196 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
There came a grand inspiration into the hearts of us all ;
no words were spoken the weary day, for it had been a
weary day, full of extremities and fatigues, and was draw
ing to a close. Nightfall was overtaking us ; on the snow
capped hill glowed the glory of the sun's setting, the rare
fied air sealed our lips with a kiss of silence, and the vista
of the ever upward road seemed to end at the gray portals
of a better world. How can I put here upon this blank,
unsympathetic paper the thoughts that thrilled through
every fiber of my brain. What cold, dead things words
are ; how empty their sound, how senseless their meaning
as compared with the grand outreach of one's spirit after
the infinite things of God.
" 'Tis in the mountains that one feels his faith."
And there alone, with the world far beneath and below you
and Heaven so near above, your heart breaks forth in the
benedictus of the psalmist : " Praise ye the Lord, praise ye
the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights,
praise ye Him all His angels ; praise ye Him all His hosts ;
praise ye Him sun and moon ; praise Him all ye stars of
light; praise Him ye heavens of heavens and ye waters
that be above the heavens ; let them praise the name of the
Lord, for He commanded and they were created ; praise
ye the Lord ; praise God in His sanctuary ; praise Him in
the firmament of His power ; praise Him for His mighty
acts ; praise Him according to His excellent greatness ; let
everything that has breath praise the Lord ; Peaise ye
the Loed ! "
Sunday, May 26. — The Psalms of David are a great
resource in a mountainous country — and yet David never
saw, and probably never dreamed of seeing, such wonderful
scenery as last night thrilled my heart with ecstasy. Five
hundred, eight hundred, twelve hundred feet, may give

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 197
some idea of height and depth to one who has all his life
had a measuring-line in his hand ; but to a woman who
never gets beyond three feet making a yard, and twenty
yards making a dress, these figures do not mean as much as
they might ; and the pictures these wonderful combinations
of hill and valley produce are not to be painted with any
tourist's pencil. Mr. D., who generally does his summing
up in a sentence, remarked with great pertinence : " I might
have sat at home in my library and read about ' foot-hills,'
and thought I understood all about them, but it would have
been a grand mistake — I know now." For a foot-hill is not
alone rocks, or verdure-covered earth massed higher and
higher. No ! a foot-hill is more — it is a mysterious men
tal preparation for the positive, comparative, and finally
superlative exaltation of the mountain tops.
After reaching Kirkwood's, which is on the little piece of
table land to which the fifteen hundred feet brought us, we
looked out on the gathering gloom of the night, but there
was mercifully no more to be seen, and we rode on in the
darkness, thinking the thoughts that had no expression
while we went forward in the mechanical fashion of all
travelers. Oak Flat is a mystery to us yet ; whether it is an inhab
ited spot, or only a name by which they mark distance, I
cannot tell ; but Garrote was a hamlet, or a village, or a
town, or perhaps a city, for through the black night shone
stars that indicated " a light in the window " — but, alas !
not for us. There was to be a ball, and the ball-room
(twelve by sixteen feet), was illuminated by three feeble
tallow candles. We were not invited, or I inevitably would
have gone ; for I longed to see whether the dwellers in this
upper region ever lost the sense of the grand surroundings
in which tlieir lives were framed.

198 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
The hotel, which we reached between eight and nine
o'clock, was a comfortable place, with a carpet and sewing
machine, and a lounge in the parlor — a good supper in the
dining-room, and a respectable and very clean bed, on the
funniest little home-made bedstead. Pitchers, basins , towels ,
a strip of carpet and a chair, were enough for each seven-
by-nine bed room. I confess I did not sleep very much,
but it was no fault of the accommodations ; for surging
back upon me came the memory of those mountains in
their mysterious veils of mist and cloud ; for
" My soul kept up too much light
Under my eyelids, for the night,
And thus I rose disquieted,
With sweet sounds ringing through my head."
This, after all, is the true benefit of -getting out of the
narrow, deep rut of one's social surroundings, for it is a
different mental atmosphere.
It was decided before we retired last night, that we might
make a Sabbath day's journey, or, as Dunning expressed it,
"Do a short day's work that would do for Sunday," and
rest at a point comparatively near " the Valley."
From Garrote they telegraphed to Hutchings to have a
saddle train meet us at the top of the mountain, and at half-
past eight this morning we were again en route. We passed
through Second Garrote, Sprague's Eanch, Big Gap, and at
twelve m. reached Hardin's This house I remember ; but
the others were such indefinite, shabby, forlorn little make-
believes of towns, villages, hamlets, etc., that like the
thimble-rigger's little game, " Now you see it, and now
you don't," you could never tell which tree the town was
under. Hardin's was a little frame house, belonging to an old
bachelor, an educated Englishman, who having been crossed

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 199
in love, and tricked in business, retired years ago to this
hermitage. Society followed him ; whole stage loads drew
up at his door and declared they would repose in his sanc
tum, and must be fed. Mr. Hardin has tried in every way
to get rid of this incubus from the outside world — for, as
he is his own maid-of-all-work, it is inconvenient as well as
unpleasant. Latterly in self-defense he had kept a keg of
whisky (this is the national drink beyond the Eocky Moun
tains), and a box of soda crackers, which is the standard
alimentation. But, Hardin, hearing that the road was to be
open, had on our arrival, locked up his premises and fled.
There was nothing for us to do but keep on until we
reached Branson's Meadows, which is situated in a little
hollow of rich ground, around which the hills rise on every
side. Before reaching this spot, wliich we did at three p. m.,
we passed the upper falls of the Tuolumne Biver, and again
had one of those wonderful combinations of wood, water
and hillside, that photograph themselves forever on one's
mind. Branson's Meadow Hotel is rougher than that at Garrote.
When the good woman of the house saw such an avalanche
of guests pouring in upon her, she was like the father of
the prodigal, and sent Chinamen and ranchmen flying in all
directions to kill a fatted calf. The dogs joined with" the
men in their excited chase after the doomed animal — the
cows were frantic with grief, and anything but mellifluous
in their expression of it. The rocks took up and repro
duced on every side the wild uproar, until a stronger signif
icance than I ever dreamed of was given to the expressions :
" The bulls of Bashan have beset me round about ; " and
"The cattle on a thousand hills" were within a stone's
throw of each other. Then, too, thin air, pure and vibrat
ing, intensified all sonnd, and for sixteen hours there was a

200 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
tumult that was calculated to drive you deaf or mad. The
rest of the Sabbath — the quiet of the Sabbath evening was
a myth, when so many cattle and hills combined against it.
We retired early, though not to sleep, and on my bed I
noticed six of the thickest California blankets. " Oh ! "
said the landlady, " you will need them all before morning ;
about four it's cold up herer" She was no false prophet,
for the night chill penetrated to the marrow of your bones.
Monday Morning, May 27. — Left Branson's Meadow at
seven a. m., expecting to reach the Yosemite Valley by one
p. m. The drive was delicious. I had forewarned the party
of the " eight feet of snow," and they all looked upon the
statement as a Munchausenism. We took wraps and rub
bers and leggings enough, however, to keep us comfortable.
On our way we stopped and saw many of the big trees of
the Tuolumne Grove, and measured ordinary forest trees
of other species ; twenty-five and twenty-eight feet in cir
cumference was a very common size. As we approached
Tamarack Flat, the snow-flowers had sprung up in all their
blood-red fungus beauty, along the whole snow-line. They
were, to me, a very astonishing production of an extreme
temperature of the soil ; in thick, pulpy texture, in lambent
richness of color, in delicate petals, yet firm hyacinthian
spikes, they more resembled the exquisite cacti of the
green-house than aught else. And yet they seemed so out
of nature — as if the flower-world, through these peculiar
fungi, expressed its passion ; for these flowers were defrauded
of their rights as flowers, and blushed hot frantic red
because they could be no more than mushrooms.
Dunning, who has had much experience getting people
in and out of " the Valley," told me an absurd story of Mrs.
C  S  , who is quite stout, decidedly elderly, and
withal very " advanced " on the subject of her rights. She

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 201
gave wonderful reminiscences of her fine riding ; but, when
they got her to the top of the Mountain, and had lifted her
into the saddle, she screamed to be taken down, for " the
thing was all wrong." Twenty times did the indefatigable
Dunning get that old dame ready to start ; but no sooner
was she on than she would be off again. His patience
becoming exhausted, he deputed the task to a guide. They
are men selected for their patience, and this one tried his
best. "No, she would walk." "No, she would ride."
" No, she would never walk." " No, she would never ride."
Two hours and a-half, and then the guide marched off, and,
seating himself on a rock, he surveyed the unfortunate and
helpless female with unmitigated disgust, as, in pointed
contempt, and a finger like a sign-post, he remarked :
" Look at that darned old fool. She ' can't ride,' and she
'can't walk,' and she wants to vote ! ! ! "
About half-past nine we began crossing patches of snow ;
and just here I noticed the same old white horse, and the
identical hob-nailed boots at the back of the saddle, that
had crossed the Tuolumne river with us on the Jackson
ville ferry ; the rider wore blue goggles, and I knew he was
the man who had reported the state of the bridle-path. Mr.
D  , and the party generally, regarded the " eight feet of
snow " a " canard ; " and Dunning, who was as truthful as
Sam Weller himself, had told us " not to believe a word of
it, no matter if it was true." Mile by mile, as we rode
along, we had frequent inquiries about "Mrs. S.'s snow."
Now things were coming to a climax, and the identical
originator of the story appeared on the scene. At once I
became irrepressible. Dunning was called upon to halt,
while the blue goggles were interrogated. He answered
like a witness in the box. He " had told this story," and
19

202 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
"it was true;" the snow was eight feet deep, and there
was yet eight miles of the trail to dig out. Within five
minutes we were driving through patches of wall five feet
high, and the man's assertion was well nigh confirmed. Yet
this snow seemed but drifts, after all. Still the walls grew
longer, and higher ; and at ten a. m. our stage stuck fast
between two snow-walls seven feet high. We could neither
go forward nor backward. Everything had happened
according to prediction ; and yet it was not so very dread
ful, for we climbed out of the door up on to the top of a
snow-bank, and walked off, one by one, upon a surface as
solid and almost as dry as the floor. Here we must await
the saddle train from the Valley to meet us. Dunning got
the California Mr. H  , and a stage-driver who was com
ing on behind, to help him, and they soon chopped a
passage for our vehicle ; but we walked on and sat down
under some great sugar pines, whose cones furnished
material for the loveliest fire ; this I built up and culti
vated, until the wind, which had veered to every point of
the compass, discouraged me. Moreover, we did not need
any more heat, and already began taking off our wrappings ;
for, in spite of the snow, the temperature was balmy and
spring-like. At eleven o'clock K. and I concluded to take a
little excursion. Less than a quarter of a mile brought us
to some of the glorious mountain views of this magnificent
region. We saw how the snow melted from beneath, and
all that my brother S. had ever told me about " the locked
forces " flashed into my mind, and the mystery of a month
ago was the A, B, C, of an observer on the mountain top.
Truly, seeing is believing — especially when one is upi in the
world 7,500 feet.
Between eleven and twelve o'clock waiting began to be
monotonous. Had we been English people we would have

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 203
taken our hindrances more wisely and patiently ; but, being
Americans, with all the imperious " drive " of our nation,
we rebelled. After expressing our minds freely on the
subject of keeping people in a state of starvation in such a
latitude, Mr. W., who had grown very ennuye, proposed
the inevitable " game of cards." I returned to my fire, and
with the aid of Mr. H., of Houghton, Michigan, dammed
a little stream and flooded out the flame — from time to
time glancing round the camp, and seeing perched on a
huge rock "a euchre party" — in one of the stages "a
poker party" (at which Dunning assisted, of course) — and,
under the pine trees, two women who had forgotten every
thing but tlieir childhood game of water and sand.
At one o'clock, a little New York boy, of eight or nine,
with long gold curls and flashing eyes, dashed in among us
and shouted " Here they are !" In a few moments his
mother followed him at a smart canter, her own blonde
hair flowing in golden ripples down her back. The inde
fatigable guide, Joe Eidgeway, before aiding her to dis
mount, produced from his various pockets many sunny
strands and golden switches, which he parenthetically
remarked, " She had took off in sections." Ten minutes
more Mr. and Mrs. A. C. McG., of Detroit, stole softly and
quietly into camp ; the latter, poor lady, was riding as in
the days of " Good Queen Bess," and was altogether too
weary to get herself off the poor little animal she bestrode.
When the guides lifted her out of the saddle she col
lapsed in one limp mass upon the turf, and lay folded up
in a little heap of exhausted nature that was rather dis
heartening. She made no moan — but she did say, "she
was elad it was over, and did not think she would ever do
it again." Think of it — here, on Tamarack Flat, were
gathered no less than a dozen people from our own State.

204 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
This time I did not wait for Mr. Mansfield's voice, but
chanted — "Michigan, my Michigan.''
To which K. and the echoes responded. When we looked
over the horses sent out for us, we found for six ladies they
had sent four side-saddles and two "Bloomers." K. and I
being considered (and considering ourselves) the equestri
ennes of the party, accepted these latter nondescript mon
strosities as our share. Mr. D., quietly and rather patheti
cally, bequeathed his wife (my little sister) to my care
while he went off, and I know tried to recover his lost
horsemanship. A quarter of a century is a long time to be
out of the saddle, but a couple of miles made quite a cava
lier of him. Mrs. D. did admirably ; and, at the end of
twenty minutes, when she found she was not dead — that
her brains were not bespattering the snow — she, too, began
to take heart. Just then I heard the tinkling of bells on a
train of pack-mules, and, as we were in a very narrow
gorge, drew Mrs. D. as quickly as I could into the hollow
of a small rock. In a second, the little wretches dashed by,
with their immense packs swinging in a top-heavy fashion
on their backs, and looking each moment as if every one
would upset, and tip over the four little legs that ran
under it.
Very soon we came to where the snow began to be soft
and crumbling, letting us in at every tenth step, and
making it rather hard lines on the down-hill places. Now,
what shall I say of myself ? It is pleasanter always to give
other people's experience than one's own, and yet —
Suffice it that the little white pony, " Peter," had a stifle
joint that gave out unexpectedly in the most undesirable
places ; that he was so starved as to be willing and anxious
to eat the dry needles of the sugar-pines that had fallen to

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 205
the ground ; that the JSloomer-s&ddle was an abomination
to which language is inadequate ; the stirrups were too
long, and then they were too short. I could have ridden
barebacked, lady's fashion, with comfort and self-respect,
but this method of locomotion, which politeness had forced
upon me, became momentarily more and more annoying.
Then, too, it was growing late in the day ; we had tasted
no food for over eight hours, and had miles yet to get
to Gentry's — a house on the top of the Mountain. Step by
step, and second by second, we kept on our way. Mr.
D. rode up and , overtook us. At last I urged my horse
forward and reached Gentry's with the guide. "What
have you got to eat ?" was the first question. " Nothing,
Madam." " But here you have six men hard at work fin
ishing your house, and you must find them in food — give
me salt pork." " We can give you a cup of tea and a soda
cracker; that is all they have till the pack-mules come
back." Tea ! Oh, how I had always despised tea. I could
not drink it. " Have you nothing else ?" " Some whis
key, Madam, and a soda cracker." ' ' Give me the whis
key." The French cook appeared at this point in the dia
logue, and finding that I was on speaking terms with him,
inquired whether I would have a "tody," which seemed
the only English word he knew. Of course I answered,
" Oui, et bien vite," and in five minutes cook and proprie
tor appeared — the former bearing a small glass, in which
was two teaspoonfuls of snow-water, also a dilapidated
sugar bowl, and the latter, an old champagne bottle, in
which there was the very worst fluid I ever saw. This was
a " tody " — quarter of an ounce of water, and liquor to suit
yourself. I swallowed less whiskey than water, and ate
two very miserable crackers, and then went out to make
some better arrangements for a horse. Absolutely nothing

206 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
could be done about a saddle. Poor K. rode up at this
point, and being got off her Bloomer, fainted sadly away.
Heigh ho ! here we are eight terrible miles from the
Yosemite Valley — starved and worn. Truly the sights of
this wonderful region ought to be grand — to pay.
After the refreshment which Gentry's unfinished hotel
afforded, we mounted and set forward on our pilgrimage.
A few hundred feet from the " Mountain House " we came
to a great table rock, smooth and polished as a floor ; indeed,
our horses' feet slipped and slid about upon it in a very
unsteady manner. From this spot, named " The Stand
point of Silence," we looked down into the deep canons
that severed and threaded these wonderful Sierras, and
watched the " Shade by shade and light by light,
Of all the grand progression, naught left out,
As if God verily made you for yourselves,
And would not interrupt your life with ours."
I am not very gregarious in my taste and habits, but if
ever I go to the Yosemite again, I would prefer to take my
views without the aid of spectators ; as it is, these guides
hurry us about as if we were a flock of sheep. Now we
reverse the experience of the indomitable "Excelsior," and
the clarion tongue must henceforth shout — " Downward."
My change of horses was like most horse trades, a losing
operation; for the stifle-jointed " Peter" had at least three
sound legs, and the occasional lapse of the fourth did give
diversity to one's experience ; but the miserable little red rat
with white freckles that took his place was what the Irish
describe as being " beyant the beyants," and was likely to
ignominiously try my temper and empty stomach. Poor
starved thing, as our descent began the creature wept and
moaned as well as shook with terror ; my weight (a hundred
and fifty pounds), seemed more than his little straws of legs

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 207
could carry. The downward pitch at this point and for the
next three miles is something tremendous, and my center of
gravity was always out of line ; the Bloomer saddle unset
tled me at every step ; I clutched the pommel, I set myself
back, and then I set myself forward — my knees manifested
a capacity for suffering that I never dreamed those joints
enjoyed. All this time my left foot was being scraped along the
wall of rock that rose on that side of the trail, while there
seemed but four inches of earth on the right between Mrs.
S. and total physical annihilation. H, who had taken
poor K.'s Bloomer saddle, tried it just five minutes, and
then finding it unendurable, used her own feet and walked
all the way down the mountain ; how she did it I can
not tell. By the time we reached a certain point in the
descent, I had my hands full ; the large boulders that our
horses had to climb over became more and more puzzling,
and my Liliputian nag found greater and greater difficulty
in getting a place for his tiny hoofs. At last, just as we
were crawling along the edge of a precipice fifteen hundred
feet deep, the little creature caught one hind leg in a cleft
of the rock, and as the two were at least four feet higher up
the country than his fore feet, things began to look compli
cated. The poor beast wept aloud and wailed like a month-
old baby, then it swayed backwards and forwards and shiv
ered with mortal terror. I must either plunge over with
the horse when it plunged, or make a fool of myself, and as
pride always was stronger with me than love of life, I con
cluded that the proper thing was to sit still. But oh,
such an attitude as I was in ; my right foot shot into space,
and my left knee rasped against the wall of rock; the
pony's hind legs high up in the air, and I at an angle of
forty-five degrees with everything. Mr. Jay H. saw my

208 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
peril, and shouted : " Guide, Mrs. S. must be got off this
horse, or he will be over — he is not safe." But the guide
was in the rear, and he did not know the difference between
Mrs. S. and Mrs. T., or U, or V, or W., but Mr. H.'s
alarm brought me to the exercise of my wits. The party
had all halted, I, by the accident to my horse, having com
pletely blocked the way. In my girlhood I had often used
the whip upon my bay mare, "Brisk," with marked success,
and in my young motherhood I had applied the same slen
der weapon, and found it a great incentive to obedience
where boys were concerned. Why should I hesitate ? A
good sharp cut or two might stimulate my pony to exertion.
Down came the blows — three stinging welts — and the
freckled-faced beast ceased to lament, and got its hind legs
out of the cleft, or off of the mantel-piece, as it seemed.
After this it was like the old woman's pig going through
the stile, for when the stick began to beat the dog, and the
dog began to bite the pig, that dance of the nursery rhyme
bade fair to get home before night.
The stones of the mountain side radiated heat, my extra
wraps for the eight feet of snow on Tamarack Flat oppressed
and suffocated me ; the two teaspoonfuls of whisky seemed
to have set my blood oh fire, and the reaction (because
terror always comes afterwards with me) caused my head
to reel and my senses to swim. At last we reached a little
spot six feet broad, where I could allow the rest of the
party to file past me, and I fell to the rear and joined H.
and the guide. I tried to walk, as H. was doing, but my
knees gave out completely — oh, how they did ache ! The
memory of the late Mrs. Emma Willard's glowing tribute
to a former Governor of New York, came flashing through
my mind, beginning as it did :
" DeWitt Clinton, that great man,
Fell down and broke his knee pan."

¦ TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 209
On the whole, it seemed as if any sort of a crack to mine
might let out the bottled-up agony of the joint. At last I
mounted again and went forward half a mile ; racked
to death with the pain in my knees, I could bear it no
longer. I rested, I struggled with myself, I gasped and
groaned, then I walked, but I was too faint and aching to
make much headway. The guide warned us that it was
half-past five — " we must cross the river before night ; there
was a Piute camp about a mile farther on ; they owned a
kettle, and might be able to give us some boiled bear or
snails." Faugh! The seething internal commotion warned
me that Piutes and snails would never go down. I put my
feet into those terrible stirrups and vowed I would die
before dismounting again. On and on, and on we went —
the torture of the rack, the boot, the thumb-screws, beset
me on every side. At last I had gotten far ahead of H. and
the guide, and was in sight of the rushing, roaring river.
Straining my nerve, I urged my steed to the water's edge,
and flung myself out of that infamous, pestiferous abomina
tion of a saddle. Pillowing my head on the roots of a
manzineta tree, I lay watching the glorious water. Oh, the
comfort I have always taken in water, from our dear old
river banks, or by the still lakeside — yes, and " On old Long
Island's sea-girt shore," listening to the booming of the sea-
breakers. But this was another and different affair — a stream
about the width of the " Eouge," perhaps four or five hun
dred feet broad, the waters coming down with a rush and a
tumult, a hurry and sweep — as if they were a troop of white
horses with manes and tails flying, eyes flashing, nostrils
flaring — ever onward they streamed.
The rapids of Niagara give one some idea of this wild,
swift, arrowy current, broken into hundreds of thousands
of hills of foam, churned white by the rocks in the river

210 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
bed— oh, such a sight. When H. came up and saw me lying
still and at rest by the water's edge, she exclaimed, " Oh,
auntie, are you dead ?" and I answered her, " Yes, child, I
did mean to die, as soon as I got out of that saddle, but I
forgot all about it." And so we sat down together, and
bathed our heated brows, and studied the sunlight on the
foam caps, and drank ever deeper and deeper draughts of
beauty. Alas, there is no rest. Joe Eidgeway urged us to get on,
or we "could not cross the river before dark." But here
the trail was on far more level ground ; and using the pom
mel as the horn of a genuine lady's saddle, I went forward
once more. The shadow of the nightfall came down even
upon the flashing river, and my poor little pony hastened
his steps, stimulated by the hope of ten pounds of barley.
My eyes were on the stream, for " the Valley " seemed yet
a mile or so away, on the other side of the Merced Eiver,
when suddenly, attracted by a deeper shadow upon the
fresh green grass, I looked towards the left and saw what I
can never forget. Towering in one stupendous mass of
rock, of smoothly, squarely cut granite, was a fortress such
as the Lord only could build ; and on the other side of the
narrow, rocky river, and opposite this wonderful bastion,
were three towers fit only to surmount His temple. My
face dropped into my hands, and prayers too deep for
utterance came in broken snatches from my lips, " thank
God," " thank God," " thank God," and then a passion of
tears that shook every fibre of my heart. Oh, the power and
the glory, the majesty and magnificence of those grand fair-
faced rocks, how royally they stood there and said of their
Maker, " Thy righteousness is like the great mountains, thy
judgments are a great deep. O Lord, thou preservest man
and beast ; how excellent is thy loving-kindness. O God,

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 211
therefore the children of men put their trust under the
shadow of thy wings;" and in the natural spontaneous
response of mind and memory, my spirit made answer :
" Neither is there any rock like our God." How long I
sat waiting in the shadow of the falling night, in the
shadow of these " mountains of the Lord's house," I cannot
tell. It will be forever a sacred season ; as the burning
bush to the leader of the hosts of Israel, so was the shadow
of this great rock to my soul's life.
Only too soon, Joe Eidgeway and H. came up, and the
former told us that this rock was called El Capitan, 3,300
feet high, and those on the opposite side were the Cathe
dral Towers, 2,660 feet above us.
After this wonderful sight and riding in this shadow, I
seemed to lose all sense of responsibility or trouble or
anxiety about " Mrs. S." Her knee-pans were nothing
to me ; if they ached, I knew nothing of it, I forgot the
saddle and the freckled rat that carried it and me ; I forgot
that twelve hours without food ; hunger and thirst had
passed away. I forgot the shades of night and the river
swollen so high that the bridge was far from safe ; I forgot
the poor Piutes who loomed up around their camp-fire, as
we passed it ; I forgot Black's Hotel ; I wished for nothing
more, absolutely nothing, except (there is always an excep
tion) I would have liked a dry pocket handkerchief.
When we rode over the bridge, which no longer bridged
the river, and took a little boat to be rowed a quarter of a
mile further, and then rode my small pony through a
swampy swail, of some hundreds of feet, it was all a pro
ceeding that did not even arouse my interest. Half a dozen
guides had waited anxiously to get us across the Merced,
and now I remember they were wild with bad whiskey,
but at the time I did not observe it. It was black night by

212 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
this time, but nothing made any difference. Even when we
rode up and dismounted upon the piazza of the hotel, and
were welcomed by Mrs. W. and Mr. and Mrs. McM., of
Detroit, it did not surprise me. Mr. D. came up and said,
" Are you entirely used up ?" and I answered him, " Used
up ? No, why should I be used up ? I have got over being
tired.' ' But a half hour after, at a most excellent supper,
my forgotten appetite returned. Before taking myself
to rest that night, I paced the piazza and studied by the
light of a most glorious moon, the fall and the flash of the
Yosemite Falls ; they were all I could see of " the Valley ;"
and their roar, which " left a sense of thunder," lulled me
at last into such a sleep as only a tired traveler can enjoy.
Tuesday Morning, May 28, 1872. — Wakened very early
and lay quietly resting and straightening my ideas, realiz
ing that I was in " the valley," and feeling withal, as one
often does when she reaches the goal of her ambition, very
solitary. Suddenly I heard a tremendous crash, the house
shook, the bed rocked, and for an instant it seemed as if
there had been "a crush of worlds." But nothing fol
lowed ; perhaps my next door neighbor snored more softly,
and some girls on the other side nestled and rustled and
murmured in their beds, and dropped away again into that
soft morning slumber that is such a comfort. These paper
partitions may shut out the sights, but not the sounds of
one's vicinity. No one seemed further disturbed, and I
still cogitated as to what had produced these extraordinary
sensations. At breakfast I made inquiry, and every one smiled
broadly and suggested " dreams," and " nightmares," and
"reminiscences of the day that was past." Mr. D. made
no bones of calling it a sensational way of regarding the
sounds of the valley ; but when I know a thing, I know it,

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 213
and there has been no exaggeration of the circumstances ;
it might always remain a mystery, but it did happen. Oh,
how stiff and sore and tired we all were when gathered at
breakfast ; content afterwards to sit on the piazza and watch
the Yosemite Falls, and the enterprising parties departing
for the day' s sight-seeing !
About eleven a. m. one or two gentlemen who had heard
it stepped in and inquired into the sound and shake that had
astonished me at daybreak. There were tliree or four prob
able solutions : First, it may have been a blast, there being
no less than four parties out making new trails ; second, a
boulder might have been washed over the falls in front of
us ; third, a mass of rock from some of the walls of the
Valley had possibly given away, and the fall of it produced
the noise and shock; and fourth, an earthquake — "they
"were always around."
On the whole I was reminded of the college boy's song :
" Some said it was a barn, and others said nay,
It's only a meeting-house with the steeple blown away."
Lunch over, the guides brought the horses, and we set
out for Bridal Veil Fall. After the 25th of May the
streams of the valley are said to subside, but they were
higher than ever to-day, and everything was afloat, water
pouring over the rocks in floods that threatened to sweep
away the very loose foundations upon which we stood ; and
to get to the Bridal Fall involved a mile or two of trailing
through swamps and streams up to your horse's girths.
They, poor creatures, stumbled along over slippery stones,
or through quaggy ground, with a patient perseverance that
proved contagious. Sometimes our feet were in the water,
at others tucked upon the horse's back, yet it was all pleas
ant and profitable, and decidedly new.
More than twenty years agone, I had forded streams and

214 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
sounded swamps — had wandered on horseback through the
virgin forests of Michigan — and here this day, spite of the
two young men and one young woman at home who called
me mother (together with a baby or two besides), I drank
once more of the fountain of youth. Sixteen — just sixteen
years of age ! The weary months and years of sickness and
sorrow, pain and death, that had filled to overflowing two
decades of my life, faded out of sight and memory, and the
sweet, fresh, dewy dreams of my girlhood seemed to come
true ; the world was fair and beautiful, and I was glad to
live and breathe and have my being ; and thought,
" As I had not been thinking of aught for years,
Till over my eyes there began to move
Something that felt like tears " —
Tears that seemed to wash away the cruel experiences of
life and time — tears that left a dewy mist upon some barren
and arid days — a soft, sweet atmosphere of peace and recon
ciliation, the mellow haze that softened all the past and
made truly perfect the present ; the future at that moment
seemed nothing to me. The scenery that surrounded me
was of its own kind so entirely, that I seemed to have been
lifted out of the every-day world in which I had always
lived, and set into a perfected existence, where the wildest
imaginings of a girl's young, fresh heart were realized.
Only too soon the party called a halt, and we dismounted
that we might draw nearer the falls. I had seen Niagara,
and Minnehaha, and St. Anthony's, with many of the lesser
lights in the way of waterfalls, but never such a one as this.
Framed in on all sides by brown and rugged walls of rock,
whose base was green with a greenness too radiant to be
described, and above all, an arch of sky whose blue was a
blue celestial — such brown, such green, such blue as only
artists see in their night-visions — while falling in a soft
spray of fleece and foam, floating out in cloudlets of mist

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 215
and vapor here and there, was a great white swaying curtain
of infinitesimal water-drops from the mountain tops. In
the Apocalypse, John the Divine, whose tranced eyes saw
the heaven of heavens opened, and the glory of our God,
tells us of the white robes of the redeemed ; this mist, and
spray, and radiance, might clothe the angelic host in seem
ing garments. '
I do not think it crossed my mind that in this glorious
mist I was growing very wet, and my " death of cold " was
beyond my ken. In fact it did not make any matter. That
great tall Mrs. S., with her flesh, and her blood, and her
bones, and her aches, was a woman I had parted company
with to my profit ; at last I had got rid of her, and was free
from my hideous double — free to stand (as I hope to stand
if ever I reach heaven) in my soul.
There was a great rock on one side, and up to its top had
clambered our California Mr. H. I had climbed to where
my eyes were just above the wall, and could catch an occa
sional glimpse of the scene. Stretching my arms up to that
cleverest of gentlemen, he seized my finger-tips, and I,
executing a spring worthy of a reckless coryphee in a
ballet, stood by his side — stood in the glories of the rain
bows ; hundreds and thousands of prisms glistened and
gleamed, and settled or danced on the moss-covered rock.
God's bow, which aforetime he had set in the clouds,
was beneath me now — was on the very earth, and flashed
in all its pristine promise at my feet. This was the climax,
and an hour afterwards the drenched and dripping woman
whose draggled hat, and clinging, soaking dress and boots
made her the veriest Meg Merrilies in appearance and cos
tume, carried home with her a heart so all aglow with beau
tiful pictures, that it seems to-day as if it would never grow
old and dry and hard.

216 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Truly I shall not forget Mr. H. That man had a sense
of justice about him for which he should be canonized ; he
did not muddle his brain with " the woman question," but
secured for me my equal rights to the glories of God in
nature. Wednesday, May 29. — To-day I was up betimes, and ready
for a fresh start. Such a cloudless sky and such a clear
atmosphere is of this land only. On our way we passed
Hutching's Hotel, and met the Hubbells once more, who
joined us for the day.
At this point the Valley narrows down to less than a mile
in width, and then branches off into two pockets of land
and water, one leading over some flat ground to Mirror
Lake, the other upward to the Vernal and Nevada Falls.
Here, too, the Merced Eiver forks; the lesser stream is
called the Tenaya, or North Fork — the other the South
Fork, or Ulilouette. At the angle where the Yosemite
branches, there is a round column-like mass of rock called
Washington Column, and beyond this another which termi
nates in a huge dome — Tocoya, or North Dome. On the
face of this appears what are called the Eoyal Arches,
formed by the breaking loose of huge masses of rock ; the
debris lies beneath us or at the foot. By actual measure
this North Dome, which is a huge rounded mass of granite,
stands 3,568 perpendicular feet above us, while on the other
side the Glacier Bocks and Point and Sentinel Domes rise
yet higher. To go into the geography or geology of this
marvel of nature would not be possible for me, though it
does certainly look to the eye of common sense as if the
bottom of this portion of the universe had dropped sud
denly down in some unexpected manner several thousand
feet. Our trail here was very rough. The debris of this tremen-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 217
dous wall is comparatively trifling when one considers how
the water and the ice split off here a bit and there a bit, but
it makes it slow and patient work getting over or around
the boulders and fragments.
Shut in and overshadowed as we were by the imposing
grandeur of these great rocks, one's realization of the great
ness of God and the littleness of man takes entire possession
of a Christian heart. This is indeed a very "Valley of
Humiliation," and perpetually one cries out, "What is man,
O, Lord, that Thou art mindful of him ? " Facing these
massive walls, we were the merest pigmies — so powerless,
so helpless. In my utter littleness I went seeking back to
the days when a dear old wrinkled hand clasped mine, and
remembered the dear old warning voice that was ever such
a sheet-anchor to my restless spirit — " Learn to say intelli
gently, my daughter, ' I know in whom I have believed,
and though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.' " Then
every quivering pulse grew calm and still, and unseen com
pany went with me on my way. I was side by side with
the spirit of a just man made perfect. All the beautiful
nature of that wonderful day was to me but God. I saw
Him in the shining water that sped onward in its course, in
the green and tangled thicket through which we sought our
path, and heard Him in the " still small voice " that whis
pered from every leaf on the hillside.
Although our trail was both narrow and steep, it looked
upward on the one hand to a more steeply sloping mountain
side, covered with pine, manzineta, and what in California
is called, poison oak trees ; while on the other there was a
downward pitch, green and glorious with turf and tree
and shrub, that plunged, as it were, into the madly-rush
ing stream of South Fork, which to-day was green — a
keen and chill, but brilliant tone of color-^flecked with

218 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
white, onward-whirling masses of foam and turbulent water.
To see these mountain streams that are a miniature repro
duction of the rapids of Niagara — to feel that if you once
plunged into them they would grasp you with the fingers
of a vise and sweep and hurl you to destruction — inspires
one with a morbid desire " to give them a chance ; " indeed,
one grows so in sympathy with their dash and whirl that
the idea of deputing to such energetic agents all one's voli
tion is a sore temptation.
However, the patient feet of the Piute pony which bear
me upward and onward, and do the drudgery of the jour
ney, take no notice of impulse, but plod, plod, plod, hour
after hour, till at length we reach a halting spot where fore
and hind legs can stand upon level ground, and not at an
angle of forty-five degrees. Here we dismount, and follow
ing a little foot trail, soon find ourselves upon a broad, flat
bit of table land called Lady Franklin's Eest, and face to
face with a cataract whose roar has echoed in your brain for
long. What is the use of saying six hundred feet high ? —
dimensions do not give ideas — and who can describe Vernal
Falls? The Bridal Veil is one thing, the Vernal something
quite different, and the Nevada Fall, which is yet to come,
we are told is as entirely distinct from either as it is possible
to imagine.
As usual I was completely fascinated ; down I sat on
the damp, mossy turf of Lady Franklin's Eest, and looked,
and watched and thought, until at last the history of
the poor restless English woman for whom it was named
came flashing through my mind. I remembered a dinner
party years and years ago, "before I was married" —
remembered how Lady Franklin's passionate anxiety for her
husband's safety was there met by the distinguished people,
who intelligently discussed her case with the sarcastic fact

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 219
that " she had been separated from him for ten years ; "
and then came all the sad quest — all the weary, disappoint
ing search — till at last she felt it something gained to
find the hidden "cache" that proved he must be dead.
After that how restlessly the poor woman wandered,
wandered, wandered, till she was old, and tired, and gray.
I remembered her coming through Detroit some ten years
after, and how differently then I had learned to view her
separation from her husband. Whatever proud and stub
born impulse had overtaken her in her youth, remorse and
repentance had come in later years. If her husband had
wronged her, she forgave him grandly, and expiated her
proud sin by her ceaseless search ; and now, after all her
turbulent, passionate, sad life, she had sat where I was
sitting, and found her rest. Facing the mighty energies of
Nature, facing the power and presence of God, there is
rest that is worth braving seas and trailing over mountains
to find. I should have been content to sit quietly where I
was all day, and all night, too, but alas ! I was a traveler !
and the warning voice of Mr. D., saying, "Well, Mrs. S.,
do you think you are damp enough to go on.?" recalled me
to the fact that we must get forward. No one will ever
convince me that Brother D. did not enjoy the day as much
as I did, but it was a great safety-valve to him to make fun
of my enthusiasm.
Again we mounted our ponies, and again we scaled our
mountain, Joe Eidgeway wandering before us, as if all his
surroundings were monotonous in the extreme, whatever
ours might be. In an hour we reached the top of Vernal
Falls, and walking out upon a huge rock that had the most
marvelous natural parapet, stood leaning and looking down
upon this volume of water that plunged past and shot
over the rock within a foot of us. What a weary time the

220 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
Wandering Jew must have had through all the centuries of
his career ! Just when he fain would have stopped, came
the imperious curse of his life, ' ' March, march ! " Are
not we Americans more or less Wandering Jews ? Is there
not a driving impulse in our blood that keeps us perpetually
on the move? Ten minutes sufficed to see a sight that
should rightly have taken ten hours, and then up we went,
up the zig-zagging trail, until we came in sight of a small
house, perched upon a little flat of the mountain. Here
we found a comfortable meal, and after that a lovely view
of the surrounding Sierras. Here, too, if we had so
arranged it, we could have remained all night ; in that
case I should have climbed to the topmost feather in " the
cap of Liberty," the name for the summit of a dome that is
very wonderful; but no, our days were "appointed," and
we therefore went up to the foot of the Nevada Falls, and
clambering out upon the huge limestone squares of rock, I
perched myself, and concluded to rebel — to assert myself —
to say I would not stir / the moon was to be up at mid
night, and I would not be torn ruthlessly from everything
that was inspiring. If I had been a man, I probably would
not have enjoyed all this, as I had done ; but if I had been
a man, I would have done as I pleased, and sat all by
myself hours and hours before, almost beneath, this nine
hundred feet of falling water. As it was, I did sit there
till the party was ready to return, then, I behaved "like
a sensible woman " and returned also ; but it was not from
any innate goodness or submission in the heart, but because
for forty years I had sacrificed my will and wish to some
one in authority — to some one who decided what I ought
to do, and what I ought to leave undone. I am an obedi
ent woman — habit makes me such. Submission was
ground into my nature with the ten commandments, but

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 221
there are times when it would not be very safe for me to
be provided with woman's rights. I think the sex are a
little too heady to be trusted with unlimited independences.
If they had left me at the foot of Nevada Falls, Mr. D.
might, and in all probability would, have found but a deci
mal fraction of me to carry back to my mourning friends.
The visitor's book at this odd little mountain house was
very curious, and everybody looked into it with interest.
One gentleman (not of our party), observing the name of
Mr. A. C. McG  , of Detroit, on two days, remarked,
" Well, that man is the biggest fool, that ever came to this
forsaken place; hds been here twice." If Mr. McG 
ever comes to the Yosemite Valley again, I will ask him to
take me. He is a sight-seer after my own heart.
The day before we were there, some old gentleman — I
thought him old because his hand had trembled in the
writing — had added after his own name the words of the
prophet Joel : " Tell ye your children of it, and let your
children tell their children and their children another gen
eration." In his family the tradition of this wonderful
valley will go down like a heritage.
On our way back we were to stop at the top of the Ver
nal Falls, descend the ladders, and then walk by rather a
circuitous track back to the Eest. We carried out this pro
gramme to the letter, Mr. W., Will and myself, of our
party, and Mr. and Mrs. Jay H  , of the Hubbell party.
On our way down the ladders we saw "an enchanted
grotto," draped with fairy ferns, sweeping in delicate sprays
and tufts from every little crack and crevice or shelf and
chip of the rock. The shade and the moisture had the
effect of producing such bracken (as the Scotch call it) as
would have outshone the waterfalls with some enthusiastic

222 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
people; they were so beautiful that I dared not gather
them — it was too like sacrilege.
Before we left this spot we tucked up our skirts, and,
donning waterproof coats, set out on what was really a very
perilous and rushing walk. A little ledge of earth, just
wide enough to set your feet in, runs like a thread along
the mountain side, the spray of the river and falls keeps
the ground soft and boggy ; you plunge into pockets of
water where other travelers have gone before and left a sat
urated foot-print ; the soft soil slips away, and you make
another spring for a more solid resting place, hoping each
foothold may prove more enduring than the last, ever
glancing back upon the Vernal Falls that pour both water
and spray behind you. It is a hard and very unsatisfactory
pilgrimage, and in no wise profitable. However, it is done
now; "the light of experience shines ever upon the past"
— and not the future. The next tourist will learn' for him
or herself, as other people have done. I was utterly
exhausted when I reached terra firma, and but for Mr.
Hubbell's watchful eye might have suffered. When Mr.
D. and K. came up, we had quite recuperated, and,
dropping our dry skirts over our wet feet, made no sign or
show of disappointment. After this our way was ever
downward, and at six o'clock we were once more at our
little hotel, where a hot foot bath and fresh clothes soon
made us forget the only trying part of the day.
Thursday, May 30. — This morning about nine we set
forth to explore the new trail, just now being blasted, to
Glacier Pointe. We found it a bare, bald, bleak, zig-zag,
steep ascent of three miles, at which point we came upon a
minutely small tent, on one side of which was painted " Lodg
ings" and on the other " Eefreshments." On the jut of a
rock we opened our lunch boxes and partook with an appe-

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 223
tite born of the mountain air, of a lunch that would scarcely
be called tempting at home. After taking many bird's-eye
views of the Valley, we set ourselves to studying a very
extraordinary stone called Agassiz' Pillar, which was as
much like an exclamation point (!) as anything I can think
of, except that the round ball upon which it rested was
very much smaller than the column itself. This stood out
on a cliff facing the sky, and threatened the valley in a
most singular manner. No earthquake shock had shaken
its center of gravity as yet, but it looked menacing for
the future. Then we mounted our nntethered steeds, and
proceeded upwards. To-day we had a new guide who
knew but little, and who did not bid fair ever to increase
his store of knowledge. I followed close upon his horse's
heels, until suddenly the trail which had been growing
worse and worse now ceased entirely. We could not go
forward, nor yet turn round to go back, and, calling to K.
to dismount, I sprang to the ground, leaving my horse to
turn himself round as best he could. Poor beast, he stood
a very smart ehance of somersaulting his way back to the
valley without me. With me, we both would have exe
cuted much ground* and lofty tumbling. Just here the
blasting party, among whom were some bright, intelligent
men, came down from somewhere up in the sky to meet
us. They begged us to walk a few rods further, and " get
a view worth having." Nothing loath, K. and I climbed
on,, until we stood upon a great plateau of snow and ice,
and took a bird's eye view of a valley that I cannot bear to
think of as small ; to me it seemed a universe. The men
were delighted to welcome us as the first ladies who had
ever reached this eminence, and were extremely anxious to
send their Chinamen down to make a cup of tea for us ;
but as we were not devoted to that beverage, and K. abso-

224 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
lutely averse to " Chinesers," we thankfully declined. By
this time our inefficient guide had somehow turned the
horses homeward, and, descending from our icy pinnacle,
we were soon in the saddle, and going down hill at an angle
well calculated to try one's nerves. People talk about up
hill work, but commend me to it in preference to down
hill. At two p. m. we were at Black's, and as Mrs. D. and
Mrs. H., who had not been well enough to go with us yes
terday, had taken Joe Eidgeway and gone to Nevada Falls,
we concluded to go over the swamps, which were pretty
deep, to Mirror Lake. This little pocket, which is sur
rounded by rocks nearly 3,500 feet high, has in its center,
and almost filling every particle of space, a lake fringed in
with exquisite pine and hemlock growths, whose waters
reflect the stupendous rocks as if they were a veritable mir
ror. The sight is very beautiful, and the rocks of the
region certainly look quite different from what they do in
other parts of the valley. Here, too, we found a house of
" Eestauration," took a sail — or rather row — in the boat,
and catechised the only inhabitant of that region.
" Yes, he had engaged a man to live with him, but the
second morning after his advent, and^during the absence of
the owner and proprietor of the house and boat, there had
been a terrific fall of rock in that vicinity. The fellow
said it shook him square out of bed and sounded like fifty
cannons fired at once. The air was thick with the fine dust
of the rock all the day, and he concluded to quit."
" Should think he would ! " was Mr. D.'s response, in that
laconic and serio-comic tone so peculiarly his own.
We all laughed and shouted, even the restauration man
himself, who immediately invited Mr. D. to come again.
This day has not been like yesterday ; nor indeed will
there ever come another like that. Two such are not to be

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 225
had in one life. Yet as we turned homeward the sinking
sun irradiated rocks and river and placid lake with a golden
glory beautiful to remember.
Friday, May 31. — This is the 'first rainy day we have
experienced in many weeks. The mountains are white with
snow, and damp and drear with mist. The excessive rains
and melting snows have kept the Valley to this date spongy
and boggy as a morass, but to-day's , rain bids fair to set it
entirely afloat. There is no possibility of going off on any
expedition, and so we have gathered ourselves under the
bewitching influence of the radiated heat of the pine logs
and cones, to be agreeable: There is a Philadelphia party
here, "railroad magnates" — as Mrs. W. tersely described
them — who are just the nicest people that one can find any
where. The children prattled in the Thee and Thou lan
guage which was so familiar in my childhood, and the
smooth-haired, gentle, patient, but far from characterless
women, who mend their gloves and repair their rents, are a
new field of enjoyment to me. The school-girl of the
party, a bright young thing that is as genuine as human
nature ever is, tells me, in an " aside," " You travel with •
people and then you know them ; these women are just as
good as women can be made."
Gradually into the general conversation there drifted a
thought or two of Woman's rights. In the sheltered life I
had led I could not bear to think or speak patiently on this
question, but our Quaker friend said, gently : " You have
good laws in Michigan — laws of protection, laws that pro
vide for women ; but in Pennsylvania it is far otherwise."
And then she detailed some of those great moral wrongs
that make my erratic sex go off in a tangent of sympathy
and protest. "No," said Mrs. L. gravely and sadly, "I do
not believe in woman's rights, but I believe in equal rights."

226 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
It was a distinction so nice and yet so sensible, that I found
myself accepting her views in a twinkling.
About noon the rain fell more gently, and the Piutes of
the Valley came upon the" stage. Oh, such Indians ! There
is no romance in them. The veteran of the tribe might
have been five feet high ; his age was hard to guess, but I
thought fifty years ; his hair white as such an untidy
wretch's could be, i. e., yellow with smoke and grime, and
his general appearance unprepossessing in the extreme ; and
yet he was the best of them. Mr. D. and the other gentle
men fastened a silver quarter in a split stick and let the
various members of the tribe shoot arrows at it till they
knocked it to the ground. It was always the old Piute who
won the money. The younger ones leaned picturesquely
against trees and stumps, and smoked unpicturesque cigars.
After all I have used the wrong word, for though about
their attitude and abandon there was a certain ease and
grace, their costume was so far from national or artistic that
picturesque is not the correct word. For instance, one
small wretch of four feet in height wore a pair of pantaloons
that were " of all things most miserable." The seams of
the legs had ripped apart and the fronts and backs flew and
flapped about in the storm like union jacks in a gale. His
upper garment was a shirt — a " biled shirt," as the miners
descriptively set such forth — that had originally buttoned in
the back ; at present it met nowhere, and had but one
sleeve. His next neighbor was dressed in a long frock coat
of that peculiar green that French and German artists
rejoice in ; from its velvet collar and general air I knew
some knight of the brush had either flung it away or
bestowed it upon this little mite of a Piute. It swept to the
ground and in the rear draggled off like a lady's train. One
or two were wrapped in what might have been originally

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 227
bright-colored blankets. I suppose these poor wretches are
human — doubtless they have immortal souls — but I fancy
the Apostle Paul would have classified them as " born with
out the law."
The evening was very social and pleasant ; one of the
Philadelphia gentlemen had been a warm friend of my
father and an elder in the church of my brother. Two
San Francisco ladies had known my sister-in-law well, and
sent her kindly messages, and when I bade them good-night
and good-bye I felt as if I were going out anew among
strangers ; indeed, the old joke that one of my brothers
used to tell of another flashed through my mind with sym
pathetic force. The two had gone off on an Eastern and
seashore trip. All was smooth and comfortable till after
they reached New England. There they began to feel a
certain lack of consideration that at last caused the elder
to say to the younger, with some disgust ; " Come, Will,
let's go home, where people at least know who we are."
Saturday, June 1, 1872.— Mr. D. and Mr. W. had at last
settled how we were to get out of the valley, which is a
conundrum only second to how we were to. get into it, and
at seven o'clock our party were in the saddle and on the
move. We were to go via Clark's Eanch. The day was
not to say bright and fair, but it did not rain.
At eight o'clock we passed Bridal Veil Fall, and by ten
o'clock, after a delightful ride on a very easy trail, reached
Inspiration Point. During, these hours the sun had been
gradually taking his fiery coursers in hand, and as we
reached the plateau of this celebrated point, we faced our
horses about and looked back upon a vision of such glori
ous beauty as seldom meets the human eye. The rains and
snows of yesterday had softened with a lovely haze every
bleak, sharp rock of the mountain, and the sun breaking

228 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
brightly forth had begun to gather from every pinnacle
and point, from every pine and cedar, soft, misty waves
of vaporous light and dew.
On Cloud's Eest, the dark, stern, blue-gray thunderous
masses that piled about and above this grand old dome
grew suddenly diaphanous — the glorious beams of day
shone through the soft, wave-like mists that draped its
sides, and from a thousand places the misty gnomes of the
mountains gathered their prismatic skirts about them and
went trooping off like captives in the triumphal march of
a conquerer. Oh ! it was as if the twenty-first chapter of
Eevelations was made possible and patent to my unimagin
ative mind. All the outer world said " Behold, the taber
nacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them,
and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be
with them and be their God, and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying ; neither shall there be any more
pain, for the former things are passed away."
This little strip of earth and sky looked ready for that
" glorious appearing " for wliich the prophets watched, for
which the apostles waited, and for which some saints in all
ages have longed and do still long. Oh, how grandly it
brought home the lessons taught fne in my father' s life and
death, for when his poor dumb lips had ceased to frame a
word of speech, he forced a note of triumph, not because
he had " fought the good fight," not that he " had finished
his course," nor yet that he had " kept the faith," but
because he was numbered among them " that love His
appearing." With every nerve of sense and spirit sensitivized and
quivering in a rapture born of earth and heaven, I closed my
eyes that the retina of memory might henceforth picture

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 229
how the world may look on the grand day for which we
wait. I had seen its earthly glory and grandeur at its best.
* * * After this it was over rocks and trees, through
snow fields eight and ten feet deep, that our path lay. At
noon we arrived at Perrygoy's, a nice eating house ; for, no
matter to what sublime heights your life may reach, you
are always expected to come down and " take your dinner."
When I left home I recalled father's great traveling maxim
— make it a point to eat and sleep at the proper time, if
possible — but eat and sleep. Hence the nice, fresh, well
spread tables laden with good food were not objectionable.
Here we met a party who had come from Clark's. A
groom came forward and invited me to change horses with
a lady somewhat more elderly than myself. He said her
steed had been seized with the "blind staggers," and was
not safe to ride into the valley. Of course I changed and
took my chances on carrying the creature into Clark's.
She got me there safe, it's true, but the next morning was
so low that Joe Ridgway said, "She has made her last
trip." About four in the afternoon, while Mrs. D. and I were
coaxing our jaded beasts over the ground, and urging for
ward the small young pack mule that was wonderfully over
whelmed with baggage, and which had been driven by
everybody and called " the baby," we missed K. I remem
bered having seen her as I crossed a certain stream. Mr.
D. and Joe, the guide, rode back to ascertain if anytliing
had happened. In crossing this very stream she had not
noticed a tough and strong branch of a poison oak that jut
ted out over the water. This caught her in its remorseless
grip and dragged her from her saddle. She was too weary
and shocked to get up and re-mount, and so sat down until
help came and she was made all right once more. The

230 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
result of this was that Mrs. D. and I rode gently forward
through a pleasant forest, my horse growing step by step
weaker. H. and Mr. W. had gone on at a more rapid rate.
About five the party rallied once more, and we came into
Clark's with some show of life and vigor. " Clark's " was a
group of three long, low, one-story houses, with piazzas
around the four sides. The inhabitants poured out like
bees from a disturbed hive, each one shouting in a more or
less minor key, " Here's a party from the Valley at last."
One clever, nice looking old soul, of sixty or thereabouts,
set her spectacles square upon her nose, and walking up to
me, said : " We are to have your horses ; is this a good
one?" Fancy her feelings when I told her the creature
was nearly dead. I gave this lady a card on which I wrote
for her aid the route and days' journeys for a week.
We found forty people had been waiting at Clark's three
days for horses to go into the Valley, and now there were
but ten for them all.
Our fare was good and rooms pleasant, and the Mariposa
Grove but seven miles away ; but I began to feel wretchedly
ill, and was not sorry the next morning to get started for a
more settled region. Barbour had made a private arrange
ment with Dunning that his coach would carry us to the
town of Mariposa. It was a large liberal red C spring
affair that outshone our own conveyance, but in the long
run did not prove one-half so good.
Next me, at breakfast, sat a weak^looking man with a
straight nose, blue eyes, and horrid long flaxen curls, parted
in the middle of his head, and straggling all over his blue
coat collar and down his back. In the buttonhole of his coat
he wore a maroon rosebud, and about his neck a maroon
tie of exactly the same shade. His nether extremities were
finished off with a pair of miner's boots reaching above the

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 231
knee. On the other side of him a rather pretty Boston-
looking, Boston-acting Boston girl was dawdling over her
breakfast and making eyes of admiration at this effeminate
creature. The assumption of the man, and a clear, white,
intellectual looking brow, made me curious to inquire who
or what he was. " Joaquin (or as they pronounce it ' Wau-
keen ') Miller, the poet of the Sierras." I was prepared at
once to believe all that his wife had said or might say of
such a figure-head. As for the Boston girl, I looked a little
Western contempt at her. Dear me, I used to be a West
ern woman — Michigan was West — but here they talk of us
as " You folks from the east." I cannot say I like it. The
last I saw of the " Poet of the Sierras, Waukeen Miller,"
he was striding his seven-league boots in the direction of
Mariposa Grove.
At half -past eight we were under way for civilization.
About ten or eleven o'clock we saw, coming along a narrow
strip of road, a procession of forlorn-looking vehicles that
appeared more like a country funeral than anything else I
could think of. Suddenly crash, smash, went something —
the poor old wagon wheel, I think, for it tilted up against
the face of a very hot rock, and stood still. At this junc
ture we flashed in all the glory of red and yellow paint and
C springs upon the whilom proprietor of this two " horse
shay." He was a " gentleman from Boston." There was a
Boston cut to his breeches — an elderly, substantial air of
having made money about him. He knew who he was, if
we did not. He could evidently draw his check ; but, alas
for him, he had reached a point where that sort of ability
no longer availed. Three Boston spinsters, looking sad,
depressed, and terribly overcrowded, sat in the still tilting
carry-all. The vehicles in the rear were all stopped ; the
rows of people looked on; no one manifested surprise,

232 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
neither did any one signify interest. " Mr. Boston's car
riage stops the way," whispered I to Mr. D., who had
been looking seriously on. That gentleman hid a smile
behind his mustache, but there must have been a glint to
his eye or a wrinkle to his nose that betrayed his amuse
ment, for in a second more "Mr. Boston" took the rostrum.
He rode a tilt straight at Mr. D. " Is this the way you do
things in this abominable swindling country ? I engaged
passage for my party in your stage" — (Mr. D. visibly
winced under the accusation of being a California stage pro
prietor, and we all attributed the mistake to the " wide
awake" San Francisco hat he was wearing) — "and we
ought to have left Merced four days ago ; not a vehicle to
be had, and people pouring in there by the hundred ; I
could not stand it any longer. I went out and found these
horses (poor spavined old wretches) and this carriage for
these ladies, and we got up at four o'clock this morning
and we have crawled to this infernal spot." " Yes," said
Mr. D., sotto voce, " to us it is as hot as Tophet." "And
there you sit as if you had nothing to do with it. Just
have that stage of yours turn round and take these ladies to
Clark's." "Thunder," said Mr. D. to us, "I think it's
about time I should enlighten the man, and tell him he has
waked up the wrong customer." But his natural good
heart, combining with the entreaty of four women, who all
felt that it must be an inexpressible relief under such aggra
vating circumstances to blow up somebody, " stimulated
him to greater patience." Barbour, our driver, told Mr.
Boston that ours was a "private carriage," but as they never
painted "private carriages" red and yellow in Boston, nor
built them to carry twelve and baggage, nor flourished the
name of "Barbour & Drake" on the outside, he simply
declined to receive the statement. At last one of the

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 233
return stages, that started when we did, came up. Mr.
Boston's party got themselves into it, we backed up to a
little broader piece of the road, and saw the whole mel
ancholy procession of mournful pilgrims file past us.
Further down the road we passed four young men on foot
bravely struggling forward to the " Yosemite Valley." At
one o'clock we were in Mariposa and found Dunning
waiting for us. Oh, how glad we were to see him. How
thankful for his shabby, easy old coach.
" Oh," said Dunning, as he noticed our satisfaction, " the
way to make people contented is to starve them down to
anything — book them for the Valley — send them to Mer
ced — and after they have waited at the hotel at four dollars
a day for three days, bring out your shabby old go-carts
and call them ' a chance to get forward ' — stop them over
at Clark's at three dollars a day, till they are desperate
enough to take any kind of a pony or mule that comes to
hand, and then you never hear any more complaints."
At six o'clock this evening we reached Hornitas and
found a nice comfortable supper of broiled chicken, baked
potatoes, etc., etc. We had staged fifty-one miles over a not
very interesting country, and I began to feel so ill that I
determined not to return to San Francisco, but rest at
Lathrop's, and then go to Sacramento.
About seven o'clock Dunning came in and told us that if
we wished to get to San Francisco the next day we must go
on to Merced that night, or at least get there before half-
past six a. m. The moon was to rise at two a. m. Dunning
was willing to get up at that hour and drive us. It was a
matter of much importance for us, and we concluded to try
it. We paid our hotel bills — the hostess left us a nice
lunch in case we found no chance of breakfast anywhere,
and at eight p. m. we retired. I slept soundly six hours ;
21

234 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
rose, washed, dressed, and appeared at the door with the
stage. All parties were prompt but the moon On we
traveled into the darkness, groping our way over sandy
plains, or loose, low hills of grit and gravel, until at length
the day began to dawn faintly, and with soft tinges of light
and color the sky behind us grew palely radiant. A shy
rabbit or mousing owl glanced here and there across our
path. The sun gave more and more glow to earth and air,
and at four o'clock, with one swift bound, shot up above a
hill-top and opened to us the gates of day. Dunning did
not know the road, but, striking into a strip of sand from
which the wheat had been mowed, he " guessed his way
along." Indeed, this was the first California wheat field we
had ever seen. On either side of us the tall ripe grain
stood like a five-foot hedge. No barns, no houses — only
miles and miles of unfenced wheat just ready for the mower.
Here and there a patent steam threshing machine rusted its
useless life away ; either it had proved a failure or had been
worn out by a single crop. At last we saw a pitiful,
shabby looking house, and then, miles more of wheat. At
half-past six Merced was in sight — that is to say, the huge
hotel that has been erected at a cost of a million and a-half
of money, and had been open but a day or two. " On
time" we dismounted — travel-stained, dusty, but on the
whole fresh from our morning ride of twenty-five miles.
Half-a-dozen darkies sprang forward with long whisk
brooms in their hands, and made us clean and tidy in three
seconds ; we had time to wash, eat a good breakfast, and
take the train at seven a. m. After thirty miles of railroad
ing I felt I had done all the traveling I could do that day,
and at Lathrop's, a place characterized by a grizzly bear,
insisted upon being left. It was a nice hotel, handsomely
furnished. My meals were served in my room ; but too

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 235
soon I found I was the only woman in the place. Oh, such
fright and terror as one feels at this sort of solitude ; but
on Tuesday, June 4th, at nightfall, an English lady and her
husband appeared. I had met them at Clark's ; and after
bidding a somewhat sentimental adieu to the grizzly bear,
whose name was " Betsey," I left in their company on the
5th for Sacramento. I had " done the Valley," but had
overdone Mrs. S., and wanted a long rest ere I took the
homeward express.
Saceamento, Wednesday, June 5th. — As I stood at the
window at Lathrop's, watching the express train over the
Union Pacific, I saw handkerchiefs waving and heard cries
of welcome from my old fellow-travelers, the F.'s, who
had joined us at Salt Lake the 29th of April. We had
exchanged visits in San Francisco, and they had begun, in
this far-away land, to seem like old friends. They begged
me to go with them to Sacramento, and as the English lady
was also to leave, I gave up my trunk for which I had been
waiting, and gathering up the light weights of satchel and
dressing-case, was off, Mr. Speaker, the hotel keeper, prom
ising to forward my heavier baggage without delay. At
Sacramento I went to the Golden Eagle, a handsome hotel,
kept with a Southern slackness that is oblivious to ants and
other small vermin.
Thursday. — Was too sick and miserable, too feverish and
forlorn, to do anything but call upon a physician, Dr. O,
who had just returned from the meeting of the American
Medical Association at Philadelphia. I had lived so many
years in the atmosphere of " the profession," that I thought
I would not " let on " I was a physician's wife. Dr. C.
heard my simple statement, saw the irritating trouble of my
ear, recognized it as something peculiar, and out of the
common way, and called his brother, a physician from Phil-

236 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
adelphia. He was evidently a poor, tired man, over- worked
and over-wearied ; he wore a wig, had a clean-shaved face,
and was "as cross as a badger" — in short, a medical auto
crat of the old school. He made some suggestion to his
brother that I understood, and to which I replied, " Oh,
that has been thoroughly tried." He glanced at me, and
said, " Then so and so " — which latter words were expressed
in very large Latin. Fortunately I comprehended him, and
again answered, " I have been all over that ground.' ' He
fastened an eye-glass into his eye, surveyed me with uncon
cealed disdain, gave a contemptuous and defiant snort, and
left the room in a manner that said more plainly than
words, " I'll not trouble my head with an old chronic like
that." His brother then gave the verdict of " want of assimila
tion ;" added a harmless little prescription, and did show a
kindly interest in a woman so utterly lonely. If the worst
came to the worst, I could look back upon this gentleman
with a feeling of trust and dependence. His brother might
be more eminent, but he had been worn out in the service
of mankind, and "chronic cases" were an abomination no
longer to be endured. I went home to my hotel laughing
at, as well as pitying, that poor, tired-out doctor.
Friday, June 7. — The R.'s called upon me and invited
me to dine. They were old Pennsylvanians, with all the
Lancaster county hospitality still in the ascendant. After
dinner (wliich was at the usual California hour, six p. m.,
luncheon taking the place of our noonday meal), we drove
about Sacramento, saw the great drawbridge over the river,
which is a turbid running stream that in the spring pours
a thick and furious flood of yellow water over half the city ;
went through the Chinese quarter, from thence to the race
course, where all the great races of the State take place ; the

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 237
track seemed heavy, the very dust looking fat and oleagi
nous. On our way back we stopped at the Capitol, an
immense structure of an old fashioned style of architecture,
surmounted by a tremendous dome. Near this stand the
governor's residence and the houses of other dignitaries and
officials. A great park is laid out having these govern
ment buildings as its central point. All these have been
erected at government expense, and have cost fearful sums
of money. Never before had I realized the practical inde
pendence of California government.
Here was the foundation of a second great capital that
might rival Washington itself. Here the great railroad
interests of this huge State are bought and sold, log-rolled
and bribed for, in a manner so shameless and unblushing
that I fairly shudder to hear of it. In the winter Sacra
mento is the Washington of the Pacific slope ; the gover
nor of the State steps into the gubernatorial mansion, which
is furnished with the greatest magnificence, just as the
President takes possession of the White House.
From this State park we went to the cemetery and saw
first the capital burial ground, a plat one hundred and fifty
feet square ; it has a number of graves in it, and in four
corners stand four tall monuments, each marking the rest
ing place of some legislator who has died a violent death ;
two had been killed in duels, one shot in the Senate cham
ber, and the fourth rushed into eternity in some equally
lawless manner. They seem to have some crude idea of
dignity and heroism in such a fierce and sudden ending.
Here, too, we saw a mausoleum that had cost many
thousands of dollars, and was built by a woman whose mar
ital relations were a great -deal more complicated than those
of the woman of Samaria. She had placed this heavy testi
monial over the grave of her son, her only child, who had

238 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
¦ died in the flower of his manhood, yet who had lived long
enough to inherit the curse of the second commandment.
And now she, poor creature, the richest woman in Sacra
mento, lay a dying — she, knowing all her sins and no Saviour,
had well-nigh reached her end ; the temporary husbands,
and one or two who had some sort of marriage certificates,
were fighting it out around her death-bed. She could
make no will, and indeed only occasionally rallied her
powers to " swear a prayer or two." Her death will add
another twist to the already complicated titles of all Sacra
mento property. Lloyd Tevis, whom we met in the Val
ley, and who, unless his face belies him, is a double-distilled
" schemer," expects to " clean out the town " with an old
Spanish claim.
Saturday, June 8. — Went down to see the draw-bridge
open ; it is quite a wonderful performance. Met Dr. C  ,
who was going to Davisville on a hand car, a little bit of
an affair, four by six feet, propelled by a couple of handles
worked by men, and reminding me of the brakes of an old-
fashioned hand fire engine. Exactly fifteen people crowded
themselves upon this small platform. The last I saw of
Dr. C  , he was going to visit some poor sick soul iUac-
cessible by carriage, boat, or steam car, for he had two
rivers and three swamps to cross before he reached his
destination. Am too wretched to go out again to-day, and
have sent a regret to the R  s for dinner.
Sabbath, June 9. — The weather has been exhaustingly
hot, but the town is built as Los Angeles is, with those
peculiar porches shading the sidewalks. I therefore went
to church. Oh, the peace and comfort of a quiet corner in
the sanctuary ! It was a plain, comfortable looking build
ing, with a fair congregation. The Sabbath school was
well conducted, and the boys and girls . interested and

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. • 239
attentive. I had in my class a bright intelligent fellow,
whose red skin and black hair betokened Spanish, Moorish,
or Mexican blood. Here they call them Indians, but they
are the regular " greasers" of Lower California.
Monday, June 10. — Have just found my trunk, and
learned that no baggage is ever delivered between San
Francisco and Sacramento on a "through ticket," the fare
being exactly the same to each city, although the former is
so much further. I learn there is a great traffic in tickets,
the way fare on the Union Pacific being so high that many
miners and others buy tickets clear through, and sell them
and re-sell them all the way to Omaha. Freights are
equally extravagant, and many dodges are resorted to in
evasion of the excessive tax. This is obnoxious to the citi
zens of the State on many accounts.
Tuesday, June 11. — Left Sacramento at 2.30 p. m. for
home. Of our party only Mr. and Mrs. D., H  and
myself remained. Mr. W  , K  and Will returned
by sea. I felt far from well, and the idea of getting home
as wretched as I left it, was not encouraging. About five
o'clock we began to pass the most beautiful scenery on the
road, but for some reason it had suffered a change ; there
was something wrong with the Sierras ; they failed to
impress one as they had a couple of months before. At
last I asked my little sister, Mrs. D., " What in the world is
the matter with these mountains?" Her answer was the
true one : "The Yosemite has taken the life out of them."
Those higher Sierras give one views and ideas, and a stand
ard of criticism that nothing hereafter will come up to;
they are the heavenly places of this poor old world of ours.
Henceforth we must look back to them as the grand sights
of our lives.
Wednesday, June 12th. — Was taken very sick indeed,

240 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
but after we left Cheyenne had still life enough to enjoy
the wild flowers of the plains of Colorado — one mass of
beautiful bloom. When the cars stopped, the gentlemen
would get off and gather us the most exquisite blue flowers
I ever saw. It was five hours' journey from Cheyenne to
Denver. On this little piece of independent road there are
no Pullman cars, and, ill as I was, I found myself compelled
to keep a sitting posture. The California ladies on the
car brought me pillows and were most kind, and I forced
myself to look out of the window and see the rarely occa
sional towns that we passed. Greeley, for instance, was a
little bit of a cluster of hastily-built houses on a level plain.
A very unpretentious river ran through it, and but for the
heavenly blue sky that stretched above, and the soft fresh
summer breeze, redolent of plain and prairie, that swept
over it, there would have been absolutely nothing to recom
mend the spot. When, at six p. m., we reached Denver, I
was past caring for town or country, and was carried to the
hotel and put to bed in a room seven by nine or six by
seven. In two hours we were again en route, and from this
time until we reached Kansas City, I can tell nothing of
the journey except that it was one prolonged shake and jar.
One instant the motion was from head to foot, the next
from side to side, and the third a jolt that sent every quiv
ering nerve into a convulsion of pain. Such nights, such
days — such suffering— are not to be rehearsed, My dear
little sister clung to me and watched over me with the ten
derest anxiety. I knew I was not a pleasant traveling com
panion, but no one else would admit the fact. On Sabbath
morning we reached Kansas City, and for twelve hours I
lay still in my bed, and rallied enough with the day's rest
to go on in the night train to St. Louis, at which spot I col
lapsed entirely, and for some days hovered on the verge of

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA. 241
prostrating fever. No one could have had kinder attention
or more devoted care, and the best of medical advice. On
Thursday, Dr. B. said : " Get out of this city ; the sewer
age, these low bottom-land miasmas, are poison to you ; this
deadly heat will sweep you into a more disastrous illness ;
get out of this city." So. Mrs. D. and I started in the
evening. Any one who has ever crossed the Mississippi
river into or out of St. Louis, knows it was no light under
taking, but once under way we soon reached Detroit. *
* My journal has this date and entry :
Wednesday, June 26. — I am, really, home once more —
home to the five children that could so ill have spared
me — home to the kind friend who stood at the helm of my
household all these months — home to the true and anxious
heart that had followed me so faithfully through all my
wanderings — home to the four walls that had been my first
childhood home in Michigan thirty-four years ago, and
which is now my children's home, where for years we have
gathered them around a genuine hearth-stone — home to
dear old Grosse Pointe, to the comfort and blessed peace of
" Rest Cottage," my lakeside home, where " the green pas
tures and still waters" will once more "restore my soul."
May I from hence " walk in the paths of righteousness for
His name's sake," for now I am home to all the dear ones
that love me and that I love — home to the very hillside
where are garnered my dead.
Home, love and children, and some skill to grasp
From the rich world its opportunities ;
What more could heart desire or full hands clasp ;
Surely, my life, like some glad tune, will go,
That God has blessed me so.

242 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
CLOSE OF THE CALIFORNIA JOURNAL.
Deae  :
As I have written up my California journal, I find
that more than once, ill health is spoken of. In justice to
the after effects of that journey (painful as at times it
seemed to be in the progress of it), I can only say that /
have been thoroughly and entirely well ever since my
return, for now more than a year — a comfort to myself
and my family. The tour could be taken in a much easier
fashion than we took it; the Yosemite reached by a less
trying but never by so beautiful a route ; and if I had it to
do over again I would show that I had profited by experi
ence. As it is, I have every reason to speak well of this
trip as a health restorer. Ever Yours, I. G. D. S.

LETTERS FROM ABROAD.

letters from ^ftroad.

These letters were published during Mrs. Stewart's absence from
home. After her return, she was never able to procure the full text.
Such as are available, however, are here given — although contrary to the
original plan — for the reason that change of place and circumstance
will, it is believed, enhance the general interest of the book, but chiefly
because in them, as in none other of the papers, is shown, in some meas
ure, her rare gift of domestic economy. WiJRZBUBa, May 20, 1875.
Deae Maet — I suppose you think it gives a scant idea
of England and English scenery, to say, as I practically did
in my last letter, that we stepped on board the train at
Chester and off at London!! — and might have made the
flight in six hours, had we been so minded. But how does
all this Old England look? is the great question. It was in
May, when everything was green with a greenness not
indigenous to Michigan — brilliant, glowing shades unknown
to us ; and yet " On English ground,
You understand the letter, — ere the Fall
How Adam lived in a garden ! ! — All the fields
Are tied up fast with hedges, nosegay-like —
The hills are crumpled plains — the plains parterres,
The trees round, woolly, ready to be clipped,
And if you seek for any wilderness
You find, at best, a park, — a nature tamed
And grown domestic like a barn door fowl,
Which does not awe you with its claws and beak,
Nor tempt you to an eyrie too high up,
But which, in cackling, sets you thinking of
Your eggs, to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause
Of meditation."
The country really looks like a school-boy's Sunday face,
all washed and shining, but not half as picturesque as if it

244 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
were reasonably dirty. Thus far I have not been impressed,
especially as we reached London ahead of time in a pouring
rain, and found that our apartments would not be ready for
us till the next day. To be homeless and houseless in this
great metropolis during " the season," is forlorn, but we fell
back upon Mr. Burr, 11 Queen's Square, who was most
obliging, and furnished us with quarters that were very
comfortable. We found several families of friends there,
and sat down to our first dinner in London — a party of
fifteen Detroiters, notwithstanding we had divided our own
party, and left Mrs. H. and Miss R. in Crown street. As
for myself, I was in the condition of the elderly bachelor in
an old friend's Valentine, who having set his heart on sere
nading his inamorata, at length was compelled to make the
painful confession —
" I'm sick, and sore, and miserable,
And wet, and cold, and tired,
And now I cannot play upon
This banjo that I've hired."
But a night's rest set me so far right that the next day I
drove to the National Gallery. I suppose that all Ameri
cans feel that one — perhaps the one grand thing to see in
Europe — is paintings. We know only in part the great
things that distinguish art and artists in this old world.
Among the more modern artists, we have seen engravings
from Landseer and Turner, and the lesser lights ; but
engravings, be they never so fine, are too apt to be like
that showiest of plays with Hamlet left out. There had
hung for years an exquisite bit of line engraving in a very
noticeable spot on my drawing room walls ; I had studied
it till I loved it, and with it had felt an unspeakable admi
ration for Turner and his work. His life and his paintings
were so entirely at variance, that long ago I dropped the

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 245
man and merged all my admiration in the artist, and, as I
stood at the portal of what seemed to open to me a new
world, I bowed my head and entered reverently.
The first room was filled with specimens of early art, *. e.,
from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, crude, sheep
ish-looking Virgins, with halos flaring around their faces, or
even more forlorn-looking Saints. The Christ of this period
was so utterly vague in execution, that one passed it with
dismay that it could ever have entered into the imagination
of man to conceive anything so unsatisfactory ; and yet
these were the initial steps that have led to such wondrous
results in art. Each room in its order showed the advance
ment of conception and execution. But by some chance we
came upon Landseer's paintings just a room before we
should have done, and his "spick span new" dogs and
horses, his bright shining back and fore grounds, unripened
Or rather unmellowed by age, were rather startling ; they
were new enough to suit the most fastidious on that point,
but they were withal very charming; one old white dog
wagged a stumpy tail at you, in a manner that would have
tempted you to forswear yourself and make oath that you
saw it vibrate. These have all been so generally engraved
that Americans need scarcely to study the paintings, inas
much as they have been well digested by all of us in black
and white, and we are therefore the better prepared to
enjoy them in colors.
The next room brought us into the Turner Gallery.
Who has not seen an ideal fade as in old times those magic
pictures of Daguerre would change from the brilliaiicy of
lighted altars and glowing arches, to the sombre twilight
shadows and darkness of departing day ? At last I stood
face to face with a genuine Turner— yes, with a hundred of
them. Some were by Turner's own desire placed side by

246 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
side with two noble Claudes. They differed so, one being so
utterly unlike another, that I became rather unsettled in my
mind. Both were new to me. It was all a flash of color and
a blaze of wonderful things. And so I wandered around the
room till by some inexplicable fascination I seated myself
before a very remarkable picture painted from Turner's
conception of that most wonderful word-picture : " And it
came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the first
born in the land of Egypt, from the first born of Pharaoh
that sat on his throne unto the first born of the captive that
was in the dungeon, and all the first born of cattle." The
power, the pathos, the judgment, aye, even the mercy of
God, was manifest in this great and awful dawn ; and I
contented myself with drinking in the awe and mystery as
well as power and majesty of this Eastern scene. After an
hour or two I rose up and departed, a sadder and a wiser
woman ; and here, weeks afterwards, I record my convic
tion, that not all the brilliant effect of his most showy
paintings, not all the more spotty blues, and greens, and yel
lows, of his various approaches to Venice, could satisfy my
heart as did those two Claude Lorraines, and this one weird
showing of how the Lord God had subdued the will of that
Pharaoh from whom Moses and his people endured so
much. I may as well tell you here that over and over again
I went back to this room and tried to make myself entirely
satisfied with Turner. His work fascinated me, but it was
more as a lurid light, or pyrotechnic display would always
hold me spell-bound till Fourth of July was over, and then
left my eyes and heart as empty as if they had been fed on
the east wind.
Claude Lorraine's and Salvator Rosa's pictures stay with
me yet; but Turner's have vanished, save this one odd
Eastern scene. Evidently he possessed extraordinary power,

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 247
but in his heart of hearts he must have lacked some great
essential element in his work. It is not fashionable to say
this, neither is it what I wished t,o think and believe, but as
far as I know it, I feel that it is the truth of my own indi
vidual convictions.
The disenchantment was very bitter — perhaps intensified
because I had looked forward with so much anticipation to
the sight of this room, where I expected him to come out
triumphantly superior to Claude Lorraine or any other artist
of the past, Turner being almost of the present.
Sunday. — We went exactly where I had not intended to
go. Every time I had seen the photographs of " Spurgeon,"
such hideous looking things as they were, I had mentally
vowed I would never listen to that man. Every time I had
read some rough exaggeration of his pulpit eloquence it
clinched my dislike to Spurgeon ! — always " Spurgeon " in
the newspapers, and yet we all set out " to hear Spurgeon,"
as if he had been Edwin Booth or any other stage character.
In my own case it was not curiosity to see or hear, but the
acceptance of my pastor's recommendation to hear him that
I might do him justice. I meant to do him justice by
giving him no quarter if there was anything short of a pure
and simple gospel in what he said. Our instructions were :
" Take the tramway to the Elephant and Ca-a-stle, and when
you get tha-a-ar, you will know right away where you are."
And tliey were admirable, for as soon as we reached that
celebrated drinking hole, we saw a tremendous stream of
people setting in one direction, and we followed them. In
two minutes we were in sight of this immense church,
which externally and internally struck me as being a cross
between Brigham Young's tabernacle and an opera house.
Hundreds of persons were gathered on the outside waiting
for the opening of the church doors. A nice, comfortable
32

248 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
lady asked us if we had tickets. I meekly replied, " No !
we did not provide ourselves with them." Tickets ! to go
to church with. It was only of a piece with all I had
believed of Spurgeon as a sensationalist. " In that case I
will take your party in with me ; it is the custom of the
church members to enter by this lower side door. Two
minutes before the time for service to begin, every member
of the church is expected to be in his or her place, then the
main doors are thrown open to the general public."
She was certainly kind, but I did not approve of her
church ways; however, when once in and seated in this
beehive of a house, where the preacher spoke from a queer,
undignified platform in almost the center of the church, I
began to take an interest in the thousand people who had
not been smuggled in as we were. All in good time they
came in with a rush, and in five minutes were duly seated
in all sorts of extemporaneous corners, in pews and out of
them. Then the great man of the church, the leader, the
organizer, come forward. My dear, he is not good looking,
but I am pretty short sighted, and so his appearance did not
trouble me as much as I expected. Dr. S. said he was
fairly well looking. His voice struck me as being husky
and unsatisfactory, but all the party declared there was no
fault to be found with his voice. The vast congregation
settled and quieted, and became attentive. Ah, what an
earnest and searching and beautiful prayer — not fluent, but
slow; step by step he led this vast congregation to the
mercy seat. Then a hymn sung by at least five thousand
people ; then a sermon that was well throughout, but deliv
ered without notes.
The power and popularity of this man is a mystery to
me, for his is the simplest form of speech ; there is rare
beauty of expression and thought, but one has to listen very

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 249
attentively to hear him, especially in a London congrega
tion where everyone coughs as if he or she had an old fash
ioned consumption. It seemed to me as I looked over the
vast audience, all evidently the plainer class of people,
well-to-do, but withal quite different from the same persons
in the United States, that it was because they were willing
and anxious to hear a simple gospel of duty. He spoke
like a master to his pupils, and they heard him gladly.
There is the stirring of a mighty impulse to make one's
every day life square with the teachings of the Scriptures ;
the commandments are the law of God, and there is a
growing distrust of a religion of sentiment, which is not a
religion of practice. The seventh commandment means
exactly what it says, though I suppose there always will be
a few fools who (as D. B. D. said years ago of the revivalist
Maffitt) "Adored the priest and thought they worshiped- God."
But a minister with good sense and good principles
knows how to suppress this sort of thing. I have very
seldom in my life met one where both these qualifications
were lacking, and I came home thinking how crude are
one's views formed from newspaper reports.
I was tired after the walk of the morning, but when
evening came it occurred to me that I would enjoy a service
in Westminster Abbey, and the willing Doctor and J. set off
with me. It was with a solemn, mysterious awe that I first
entered that fane where are garnered so many of the great
ones of the earth. From a child Westminster Abbey was a
spot of all others which my imagination had sought unto,
and I was to stand within its arches.
Entering the east nave, we saw a congregation already
gathering. Evening was beginning to fall. No artificial
light was as yet illuminating the space under the great

250 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
groined windows and arching roof. Each pillar cast its
own lengthening shadow ; the church was dark with a tan
gible decay ; the stone floor cold and sweating with the
exhalations of dead heroes ; the seats ? — well, the less said
about them the better — crooked, ill made, dilapidated old
chairs that stood in lines. J. was indignant — " they were
horrid. At Lake Superior in a log shanty she had seen far
better used for the worship of God."
Large numbers of people now began to gather in ; again
they were the common people, the plain " middle classes " —
some were not even clean. While we were waiting, I
picked up a leaflet lying upon one of the chairs, and as I
read I wondered if I were awake. Of all the wonderful
things ! — surely I must be dreaming ! ! — but there it
was!!! — a call earnest and faithful, committing all the
established Church of England, to what ? To Temperance ?
No, better than that — to Total Abstinence. And here were
the names of all the greatest dignitaries of the three orders
signed, and the 12th and last point in the selection of means
and methods to advance the cause of total abstinence was
"a dependence upon prayer to God for His blessing, and
recommending meetings for prayer."
I sat in a daze and heard the prayers intoned, and the
service generally shrieked and squeaked and chanted by all
kinds of singers. The great organ at last pealed forth its
jubilate like a living thing, and did seem such a superior
instrument to the human voice which flatted off the prayers
of God, that I thought the worship would be performed
with more dignity by an instrument of that cast than
an actual vox humana. At length up into the little
pepper-box of a pulpit came a fair, open-faced, fine looking
man, who did the bravest thing a man could do ; he
acknowledged his sin and the sin of his church in tlieir

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 251
careless, selfish neglect of the practice and precept of
abstaining from that which would cause a brother to err.
Oh, Mary, such a temperance sermon I never heard ; his
taste was faultless, and yet his truths were something tre
mendous. I know it is not in my power to reproduce
them ; but he said, with shamefacedness and a genuine
humility that will make his words heard in the Court of
Heaven, that they, *. e., himself and the Church of- Eng
land, " had let this evil grow because no one desired to trench
on the liberty of action of good men, and dictate to
them how much or how little wine they might be trusted
with, until this subtle agent of the arch enemy, with -its
swift and deadly virus, had poisoned the entire nation." If
only those few women all over Michigan, Ohio and New
York, who had prayed day by day, and night by night,
could have heard this man stand there and say that he, in
this Westminster Abbey, was authorized to pledge the
highest honors in the Church of England to the principles
and practice of total abstaining, they would have known
more surely than ever that the God of Elijah heard and
answered at this day ; and they too, would, like Elijah of
old, have seen the rising of the little cloud not larger than a
man's hand, where they had least looked for it. What a
pean of thanksgiving would have risen from those poor
souls who had come out for the cause in its darkest days, in
the very front of tacit opposition from fathers, brothers,
husbands — aye, and pastors even ; and who had patiently,
and with that steady persistence which is power, gained
even in the State of Michigan, an inch! As for,myself, I
sat trembling and afraid, and for the second time in my life
recalled with a personal application our Saviour's blessing
upon obedient faith ; for more than once, like that head
long apostle, I have been prone to say, " Master, we have

252 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
toiled all the night and have taken nothing." And now,
when the promise of this mighty draught was before my
eyes, when my willing hands would gladly have lent their
slender strength to aid the drawing of the seine, I could
only sit trembling at the faithlessness of my own heart, and
cry out as of old did Peter : " Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord ! "
The. preacher was the Rev. Samuel Wilberforce, a son of
the old Bishop of Winchester, but very unlike what I had
been led to believe that gentleman to be, for he was a ser-
monizer (judging from this effort) of very great taste, tact
and power. His voice was faultless in tone and emphasis,
and he was not in the least English — that is to say, his pro
nunciation was pure, perfect, and as fine as one sometimes
hears in the United States. I made some effort to get this
sermon, but as yet it is not published by authority, and the
London papers did not even make a mention of it. Jour
nalism is so different on this side ; they fill their papers
with the veriest bosh, calculated to stultify the intellect,
unless one had a decided taste for murder, and in that case
the stultification would be of the moral perceptions. The
religious intelligence which is a standard column in all
American newspapers, is the recognition of a popular
demand, but in England the routine of established usage
never yields to any combined want of the populace. If the
Earl of Stupid, or Lord Dunderhead, make a speech or give
a dinner, and the Lord and Lady Knownothing and the
Dowager Duchess of Dunceland are present, it is a good
half column, and as these distinguished people are on the
top of the wave, and make speeches and give dinners ad
libitum, it renders the English journals intensely interesting
and instructive.
I have since learned that the father of Mr. Wilberforce,

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 253
the old Bishop of Winchester, was far from holding extreme
views on this temperance question, but an intimate friend
of his had been led to consider it as only to be forwarded
by total abstinence, and failing to convert the father, he had
contented himself with bringing his arguments to bear upon
the son. And thus the very man whom the old Bishop had
" made a guy of," and whom he never spared a joke upon,
had led his own son to come forward as a standard bearer
of this great cause in a reluctant church, so that what glory
had come to him from his descent, he had used to further a
reform so necessary in this English nation. " I wonder the
old Bishop does not turn in his grave," is what the popular
voice says ; but if he was " a just man made perfect," his
soul has seen, and rejoiced in, the clearer light that shone
upon his son's path of duty, than ever illuminated his own.
Oh, Mary, every day of my life in this foreign land leads
me to the conviction that the strength, and power, and
greatness of the English race on Albion's shore has been
sapped of its foundation by this hideous habit of drink.
Pray God, that we Americans may awake to our danger in
time. England's greatness is of the past; she holds, of
course, a certain commercial power, but to-day this is her
breath of life. The old blood of her nobility has about run
out. She is a nation of flunkies, reminding me constantly
of the keen satire of Byron, who wrote for the collar of an
Earl's pug — " I am his Highness' dog of Kew ;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"
And the greatest leaders the nation knows this day, are
the two men who have refused to be made peers.
I. G. D. S.

254 MRS. MORSE STEWART. Kissingen, June 30, 1875.
Deae Maet— If I were to tell you all the wonderful
sights I saw in London, you would grow uncommonly tired
of the story. To describe the South Kensington Museum
might take a week, and be thoroughly unsatisfactory in the
end ; to go into the Zoological gardens and give you any
idea of the way the hippopotami roll around in their huge
puddles, and eat the crackers and bread bestowed upon
them by the sight-seers, or do justice to the birds and mon
keys, the lions and bears, the anacondas and reptiles ; or
last of all, expatiate on the giraffes (with whom I always
had a sympathy), camels, elephants, etc., etc., etc., would
take another month ; we will pass one day, however, with
them. While the rest of the party went to the British Museum,
I betook myself through that portion of London which
Dickens describes with such minute faithfulness in Bleak
House. No guide book could have made me know my
whereabouts one-half so well. From thence to see the
Deaconesses' House, Islington. Some time when I have
thoroughly thought out their work, and an improvement on
it for the needs of the United States, I will reduce all to
writing, and you shall have the benefit of it. But it is
not well to handle hastily subjects of this sort.
The next day it was pictures again. " The Royal Acad
emy ! " Oh ! such washed-out things as covered its walls.
The portraits were the weakest milk-and-water productions,
and, except that of a boy of twelve, and what must have
been a bright likeness of Robert Browning, I saw nothing in
them that was to be compared with some of Mr. Lewis Ives'
that have hung in Smith's window — for instance, that head
of Mr. Stanley, or his portrait of Jacob M. Howard. I do

LETTERS FROM ABROAD 255
not know how it is ; these men " grind awfully," as they
say here — that is to say, they study and work, and take
pains enough to overturn all precedents, but by the time
they are Royal Academicians there is not spontaneity
enough left to produce anything worth remembering.
They are very sharp on Dore, whose largest pictures they
criticise with a certain amount of truth, but they could not
come anywhere near him, and they know it. Indeed, his
Gallery had some very wonderful things in it. The Dream
of Pilate's Wife was so truly a dream that I recall it with
accuracy ; and his Christ in the Pretorium was a picture of
great power. Dore, Frenchman as he is, has expressed in
the Christ in each picture, a Saviour — a man of sorrow,
and acquainted with grief, but a being who is not of the
earth earthy. As He looks upon the wife of Pilate, there
is that in the face that recalls the question of the Scribes
and Pharisees : " Who can forgive sins but God alone ? "
Poor Dore is said to be such a disappointed, sour and
bitter man. His intellectual conception of Christ is by far
the finest of them all, and the figure and face seems to me
so clear an expression of Christ as God, that sooner or later
I hope to hear that his heart as well as his mind acknowl
edges His mercy. Think how he must have studied on the
attributes of that ideal, before he could have expressed
them with such faithful power.
On Sabbath we went to hear Dr. Cummings. My ears
are wonderfully sharp, therefore I heard him, but I fancy
no one else did. His sermon was an exhortation, but for
all practical purposes it might better have been expressed
in pantomime. Oh, such a poky old church as it is. Here,
they tell me, great numbers of the aristocracy attend. They
may have been present, but I saw no person who, by face
or bearing, expressed my ideas of the result of long cultiva-

256 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
tion. A number of coroneted coaches drove away from the
church door after service, but in them I saw only the aver
age face and expression. At last I begin to understand
why, at the court of St. James, they always admired Mr.
Dallas, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Fillmore, etc., for I see no such
men either driving to Parliament or in Hyde Park. They
were Nature's noblemen.
We were to have left London Monday morning, but were
urged not to do so, because it was Whit-Monday, a holiday
which closes all the offices, stores and banks, and on which
all London goes out of town, and all the country pours into
it. J. concluded to take the young people and go with
them to the Crystal Palace, where the fountains were to
play, and there were to be several exhibitions. Our good
landlady recommended me not to go to any place of the
kind with the children, as the London crowds were prover
bially rude and rough. I therefore betook myself to the
Strand and Whitehall, and watched the populace going
hither and thither. Some of the sights haunt me yet.
Truly, "a holiday of miserable men is sadder than the
burial day of kings."
I could not become accustomed to it, and over and over
again the refrain of the last offertory that I heard our
friend Mr. Carter sing, came back to me :
"Turn not your face away from any poor man."
Oh ! if all London worked their fingers to the bone for
her poor, they could do nothing! — absolutely nothing, so
long as the gin shops can keep them where they are. And
yet all the poor do not drink. I saw, for instance, one
family going pleasuring ; the man had a rickety old hand
cart, so frail that I wondered how it kept together, and in
it were three little children — the youngest, of perhaps three
years, was so thin and gaunt and small, that she was no

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 257
larger than a delicate baby ten months old ; the next oldest
was five years, and she was the size of one a year and a-half ;
while the oldest, six years, did not weigh over twenty-four
pounds. Oh ! such little, little things, so gaunt, and starved, and
pale. Over them was tucked some old bagging, such as
comes over cotton bales. They were as clean as London
water, soot and weather would permit, and were clothed
after some sort of a fashion out of the rags from a dust
heap. There was a little attempt at making them fine,
too, for the mother and eldest girl were walking on the
pavement, while the poor man carefully pushed forward his
frail cart, and would look from time to time at them and
chirrup and smile in a way that would make your heart
bleed. At last the wind from the Thames blew a feather
in the little one's hat out of place, and the girl rushed into
the road, set it straight, and patted the poor pallid cheek.
Oh, Mary, if yon could have seen that feather. It looked
as if it had come from some worn-out old duster, so mangy,
so forlorn, so wretched was it all. They seemed like a
family who were almost " clemed" to death. That word
clemed has no place in Worcester or Walker — it is a coinage
of the poorest class, and means kept on such a small allow
ance of food that they suffer gradual starvation. But
though it may not be admitted into the language, the fact
is none the less real, and these poor wretches express it
by the words " clemed to death." I followed them far with
eyes and heart, and longed to have those weak, pallid little
things in Jennie B.'s hands. She would have fed them,
and clothed them, and placed thQm " with the nicest peo
ple in Michigan," and taken such solid comfort out of it as
would have strengthened her to endure for the seventy and

258 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
seventh time those trying casuals that one cannot cure and
so must endure, in your own Home of the Friendless.
In the evening, J. came home with our young people.
What a time they had. Every one of them had been
shocked and startled by the crowd — 50,000! ! at the Palace.
They had seen a man in the depot give his wife a blow in
the mouth that made her an object for the rest of the day.
It was a merciful Providence that this American family did
not interfere (as they were evidently inclined to), but in the
course of the ten minutes' ride this harmonious couple
patched up their difficulty, and went off arm in arm.
In short, we had all seen enough of London, and longed
to get out of it, which we accomplished the next morning
by eight o'clock. Eleven a. m. reached Dover, where we
took the Dover and Calais boat, reaching the latter place at
twelve m., and having been just sixty minutes crossing the
channel. It was a bright and beautiful passage, but I was
glad it lasted no longer, for I was beginning to grow unset
tled. Here, all in an instant, we found ourselves in a for
eign country, and at the ticket office, " no English need
apply." Dr. S. said, " Come, explain to these people — I
need two half -tickets for the children." Knowing how
futile it was to study up a sentence, and then try to say
it, I concluded I would take no thought, but wait for the
inspiration of necessity. It was just the luckiest decis
ion I ever came to, for if I had tried to recall what " tick
ets," and " fare,"- and " half-price " were in French, I never
should have done it in the world. As it was, I walked up
to the ticket man and said it all as quick as lightning, and
as straight as possible the man gave me my tickets and
change, and the agony was over. I had no difficulty hence
forth with the French language — it spoke itself.
From Calais the country was low and flat, but fresh and

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 259
green. Hundreds of windmills spread their stiff arms to
the wind, and the peasants were toiling at their spring sow
ing. Our party just filled a compartment, and we sailed
along very comfortably until we reached the boundary line
between France and Belgium. Here we, oblivious to the
important point in our journey, suddenly found the lan
guage take a change. A man in semi-official dress of some
sort presented himself at the window, and made a series of
remarks. They were neither French nor English, and we
very naturally and correctly concluded that they must be
some sort of German. As B. had been studying that lan
guage for three ! months, the whole family turned upon
her and demanded, "What does he say?" Unfortunate
child, she could not even guess, and her indignant brethren
said, with marked contempt, " O ! I thought you knew
something of German." She had never made the slightest
pretensions, but what little knowledge she really possessed
vanished like " the baseless fabric of a dream " before such
sharp criticism. A second time did the semi-official come
and fire the same Dutch volley of incomprehensible sounds.
He was red in the face and looked indignant, so fearing
trouble, the Doctor and I went out to capture a Frenchman.
It did not take long, and he was so polite and pleasant, and
made such a trifle of the fact that it was "only the Douane,"
that it was " nothing," that if I had nothing but my hand-
baggage I need not trouble myself ; the trunks would be
examined at Cologne, etc. But we returned to find our
compartment swept and garnished. Neither children,
friends or baggage anywhere in sight. We afterwards dis
covered them all — family and hand-bags, in a high state of
disorder. The unfortunate man who found fair words in
the German tongue, of no avail, had come a third time, in
the last stages of exasperation, and having uttered a series

260 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
of emphatic sounds, seized a' boy and a bag, a girl and a
shawl, and dragged them into the custom officer's room.
There, by dint of waiting impatiently for half an hour for
nothing, they got themselves and their hand-bags released.
There did not seem to be any marked difference between
the scenery in the little strip of France through which we
ran, and the longer stretch in Belgium, as far as Brussels,
all being a rather low, flat country, green but not fer
tile. Between five and six o'clock p. m. we were in Brussels,
that second Paris — a citj7 that, to every woman's mind,
recalls the earliest and the latest dream of lace. But we
were too tired to care anything for finery of any descrip
tion, and longed to press forward to that "settled home"
we hoped to find in Germany. The next day, however, we
drove about and saw the principal points of interest. Went
to the market, where we bought oranges, lemons and straw
berries; thence to the Wirtz Gallery, where we found some
very strange, and, in some respects, interesting pictures, but
what genius the poor man had possessed was erratic to an
uncomfortable degree. We were most pleasantly impressed
with Brussels ; the place itself really undid the impression
that Charlotte Bronte had given of it in " The Professor."
Still I can believe it capable of being anything but a
charming spot, unless all other things were equal.
I had a number of wants. For instance, I wanted to go
to Diisseldorf, and from thence to the great " Kaiserwerk,"
that was the origin of the cottage system of charity in Ger
many and throughout the world ; but as is usual with my
philanthropy, it had to stand aside and wait till I had ful
filled Certain duties to a husband and five children ! ! What
could I do with them at Kaiserwerk? So I gave it up for
the present, and did eight hours' traveling straight through
to Cologne, where we staid all night. In the morning saw

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 261
the old Cathedral, etc., but as it is not a sweet-scented city,
Byron having characterized it as ¦
" The body-and-soul-stinking town of Cologne,"
we concluded to take the boat up the Rhine — " the Amer
ican steamer," as it was called — and truly it was the most
delightful of boats, all brass and black walnut. For about
fifteen miles from Cologne, the river and the country did
not strike me as being anything extraordinary, but from the
moment we readied Bonn it was one fleeting panorama of
beauty. If I could have had my own way, I would have
sailed back the next day, and on the third taken the trip
by easy stages, spending a week among its old castles, read
ing up its histories and its legends, and posting my memory,
which seemed to be a tangled knot of odds and ends, of
facts and fiction, Bulwer's Pilgrims of the Rhine, Schiller's
ballads, Roman history, D' Aubigne's Reformation, Charle
magne and Martin Luther, Longfellow and Goethe, till I
did not know which came first and which last. I wonder if
my historic reading is worse and more scrappy than any
one's else.
There is an old chart of the Stream of Time that hangs
in my library at home. If ever I get to that sacred spot
again, I will clinch the centuries in my head as if they were
so many German irregular verbs. There is no use in my
trying to tell you how these great hills and this broad and
beautiful river looked, for the Rhine is a clear case of the
illustration of that proverb, "seeing is believing." As we
stopped at Elirenbreitstein, I recalled Bethune's description
of it years ago. But fortresses and castles do not inspire
me with new powers. In natural characteristics and outline,
it was a strange combination of the Hudson River and the
upper Mississippi, if you can fancy those great water courses
with hillsides covered with vines, and bristling with castles

262 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
and fortresses, about every one of which lurked historic
interests that would have deepened and intensified their
power, could I but have sorted out and applied the knowl
edge I really had. J. was more fortunate in this respect,
and recounted many legends for our benefit. Many
points were strangely familiar to me, probably owing to
the fact that so many fine points of view had been used
by the photographer or traveling artist. And the pictures
» thus produced left very correct impressions. It was a
fresh, clear, brilliant spring day, and there was a pretty
strong wind sweeping us through the gorges. Thanks to
steam, it did not impede our progress ; though poor J.
grew so chilled she was obliged to seat herself where she
could be protected by glass. But it was the finest of
French plate, and only made the river look more of a pic
ture than ever. About eleven a. m. a waiter came to me
and asked if I would take "table-d'hdte." I had long
before decided to take unhesitatingly pretty much what
offered, but whether it would prove a dinner or simply a
ceremony, I could not tell. In the end it turned out a
cross between the two. Table-d'hdte is what we usually
call a Russian dinner, served upon a prettily ornamented
table covered with fruits and flowers ; and consists of a hasty
plate of soup, then boiled salmon, turbot or some other fish,
or a mayonaisse of salmon, lobster or crab. The third
course is invariably roast beef garnir, in which a mysterious
looking bit of meat, that is neither rib nor sirloin, is cut
into slices, and packed together on a dish, at one end of
which is maccaroni, at the other beans — each side, fried
potatoes and cauliflower. You take a spoon and a fork, and
help yourself. The fourth course is spinach, boiled and
chopped fine, and stewed into a thinnish paste. This is
served with raw herring or raw ham in thin slices, or some-

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 263
times it is varied by beans cooked in the same way as their
spinach, or Bologna sausage sliced thin. The fifth is the
grand luxury of the dinner, and consists of either snipe,
venison, pigeon, black cock, grouse, quail, or some sort of
game. Sixth, invariably chicken, young grouse or young
turkey (they all taste exactly alike), cut up into bits that
make two mouthfuls ; a " compote" or to be more compre
hensible, a dish of stewed apples, plums, prunes, pears,
cherries, peaches, currants, or any other fruit in season ; a
salad of lettuce, with oil and vinegar. Seventh course,
a pudding or pastry, which, to quote Dr. S., " is incompre
hensible and nnexplainable to an American." They are not
bad, but at the same time are not good. Eighth, fruit,
wliich tastes of the ground in a most extraordinary manner.
These eight courses are served in sixty minutes, half of
which time is occupied in the necessary changes of plates
and knives and forks.
No matter how good your table-d'hdte may have been,
when all is said and done you feel like those "Wild asses
that stood in high places and snuffed up the wind," and
that is all that you have had for dinner. Still, it is an insti
tution of the country, and taken as it was in this instance,
in full view of the mighty river and its mighty hillsides, it
was agreeable enough.
8 I. G. D. S,

Heidelberg, September 14, 1875.
Deae Maet — The day after the boys started for Heidel
berg, the Doctor, Mamie, Robbie and myself set out for
Kissingen ; and if ever a woman shook the dust of a dirty
Bavarian town gladly off her feet, I think I did that of
Wiirzburg; though indeed it was not an easy operation, for
there was the hotel bill, and the piano, and half-a-dozen

264 MRS.' MORSE STEWART.
items that you could get no account of till the last moment,
and if I could give you any idea of the complications of
German currency, you would see that the simplest bill
would grow to an inextricable confusion if you were hur
ried with it. For instance, premising that you have made
a clear and definite agreement for your board, or music, or
what you will, the first thing that you discover is, that in
every instance there is a misunderstanding or a side issue ;
or a man who knows nothing about it comes for the money
and insists upon the face of his account. In Germany, as
indeed all over the continent, your letters of credit call for
so many pounds sterling. Your banker calculates the worth
of the amount you draw at the ruling rate of English gold,
and pays you in florins, or gulden and kreutzer, or thalers
and groschen, or mark and pfennige. A florin is the
same as a gulden (but it takes you some time to find that
out), and it takes sixty kreutzer to make either of these
coins. The value in American gold of a florin is 41 cents ;
a mark is, in American gold, 24 cents. It takes 100 pfen
nige to make a mark. Your bills are sure to be made out
in florins and kreutzer, and you have to pay them with
mark and^pfennige. As you go further north, after you
have conquered this aggravation, your bills are rendered
you in thalers and groschen, and these again you are obliged
to pay with mark. When you consider that we did not
know the language, how do you suppose one was ever to
get at the solution of the mysteries of tlieir currency ? Dr.
S. fell into the natural but stupendous error of believing
that if he made an agreement with a man for 200 florins,
and paid him the equivalent of that sum in mark, it would
simplify matters greatly. So he would figure and calculate,
and get his little piles of gold ready, and present them with
the appropriate bills. This was always the signal for every-

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 265
body putting a brake on his or her temper, and a scene of
confusion of ideas taking place that beggars description ;
the finale invariably being a volley of high but unintelli
gible Dutch, hurled into our ears, and the Doctor, with
gleaming eyes, producing a handful of additional gold, and
saying, in the plainest English, " There, my friend, take
what you like, but get out of this, quick ! " We were .not
the only persons who helplessly surrendered. It used to be
my amusement in the breakfast room to see the bills ren
dered, to hear them discussed (I learned quite a little Ger
man by listening), and then observe the helpless look of
meek desperation with which the money was counted out.
The Germans themselves were not much better off than we
were. The truth is, we none of us liked Wiirzburg, and
we really felt happy to be en route to Kissingen, which is
about an hour and a-half journey, only you change cars sev
eral times and wait around stations so that it takes nearly
double that time.
Perhaps there is no German Spa that has the downright
intrinsic value that the springs of Kissingen possess, and
large numbers of English are always to be found there,
These springs lie in a pretty little valley, through which
runs a muddy river considerably smaller than the Rouge.
Around them have sprung up hotels, shops, baths of every
description, shaded streets, the cure-garden thick with trees,
but with a large and handsome colonnade for wet days, of
which there are a great many, etc. The railroad depot is a
pretty, bright building, in which is the postoffice, situated
about a quarter of a mile from the town. The first build
ing we reached was a new stone hotel, just being finished.
We stopped to dine in the garden here, and found ourselves
so pleasantly served that we concluded to investigate the
unfinished-looking house. The result was that we engaged

266 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
a lovely suite of rooms, newly furnished, in excellent taste,
neat, dainty, having the prettiest little balcony, and French
windows. Our breakfasts and suppers were served in our
own saloon. We took table-d'hdte in a building at the end
of the garden ; the cook was good, always giving us a nice
hot meal. The view from our apartment was charming ;
we were just far enough away from the town to be free
from its disadvantages, but near enough to avail ourselves
of its advantages.
Your first necessity, if you take what they call a " Cur,"
is to consult a physician. We had been interested in the
book of a young practitioner there, and so called upon him.
He said, with pleasant frankness, " People read my book,
but take my father's advice ;" but he was sensible and intel
ligent, and we went no further. The regimen at Kissingen
is peculiar : rise at half-past five, be at the springs by six,
drink half a glass of Rakotzky water ; go to the bath house
and secure a bath. This is quite a funny process. You
take your place last in a line of people waiting for a ticket.
After eight or ten or a dozen are served, your turn
comes, and yon depart with a bath ticket, and usually leave
a dozen women behind you ; and this procession lasts from
one to two hours. If I was ahead I would manage to buy
the Doctor's bath too, so that we could depart together.
Then we walked for half an hour, and came back to drink
another glass of the water ; after which we walked another
half hour, and returned to the hotel for breakfast. It was
inexpressibly comical to see all the invalids come pouring
and hurrying and scurrying down to the spring. Stout old
parties who weighed several tons (to all appearances), dilap
idated young men, gaunt single women. The waters cured
obesity and catarrh ; they swept and garnished the intestinal
canal, and put the whole human family in training for the

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 267
invigorating influence of the mountain air of Switzerland.
The English were here in large numbers — lords and ladies,
poor gaunt-looking architects, swells and snobs, and nice
middle people who were neither. During, the two hours
that we all walked, a melancholy band discoursed the stiffest
of classical music. The hundreds of people paced up and
down, stopping to buy some of the delicious Swiss breads
which were sold at tables in the garden. My dear, if I
could ever learn how those things were made, it would be an
addition to our receipt book that would renew its fame. The
peasants stand near the bread-women with earthen pots of
wild strawberries, so that I usually took home for my small
people something fresh and nice for tlieir breakfast. You
must know the city authorities regulate what you are to
eat and drink, and if you are taking a " cur," the waiter or
proprietor, or whoever you appeal to, tells you — " No ; "
"No butter," "No tea," "No potatoes," "No cherries,"
etc. — "Es ist nicht Cnrgemass " — and nobody short of a
"revolutionary" would after that try to set up an opinion
of his or her own. When all the assembled wisdom of
twenty-four M. D.'s has prohibited tea, you must give it
up, of course The baths must also be taken at the temper
ature prescribed by your medical man, but I never had the
least idea of what that temperature would be with a respect
able thermometer, such as I always bathed my own babies
by, for it took such an intricate calculation to find out what
24° Reaumur was with a Fahrenheit thermometer, that I
thought ignorance bliss. The rule was like one of those
in Robinson's arithmetic — multiply by 2J and add 32 for
above zero ; but as there was another style that occasionally
turned up and was sometimes called a Celsius, and some
times a Centigrade, and required you to multiply by 1|
and add 32, I came to the conclusion that the temperature

268 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
was, if anything, worse than the money, and made up my
mind never to struggle with it. Large numbers of Russians
were at these springs, and the Germans were mostly of the
middle class — comfortable, fairly well-to-do folk that made
no pretensions, but were kindly and well disposed, aiding
you in any way in their power, always bowing to you cere
moniously when you took your place at table, and rising
and pleasantly bidding you adieu when you left.
Of the residents quite a number spoke some English,
and in many of the stores you found persons who had
passed some little time in the United States or England ;
but the shoemaker of the place was too devoted to his
trade to interest himself in foreign languages, and his
wife, who attended on the store, was too uncompromis
ingly German to do anything but sell shoes. In London
I had ordered a pair of walking-boots, but they were not
finished when we departed, and were to be sent ; as yet
they had not arrived, and a new pair became an absolute
necessity. I mustered enough German to tell her that I
wished her husband to make me a pair of shoes, and then
selecting a pair of boots, I explained, " like these." Where
upon she insisted upon trying on this very pair. I resisted
ineffectually ; the boots went on, and seemed to fit ; the
Doctor applauded ; the woman became more than ever set
in her opinion that those were the shoes for me to buy.
Every moment they pinched a sensitive toe more and more
sharply. Resistance seemed useless ; but to give it up was
future martyrdom. All I could say was, " Nein ! " " Nein ! "
"Nein!" while my perturbed lord and master murmured,
"These are what you call a bird in the hand." "Do you
not think you had better try them ? " " Did you realize how
worn your own boots were ?"— and all this time the " stiefel "
woman was pouring out torrents of an unknown tongue.

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 269
At last, in sheer desperation, I betook myself to the English
language, in which I rejected the boots, and snubbed her
for her officiousness. She clasped her hands, and iterated
and reiterated, "Ach, Gott im Himmel!" as if she were
the sufferer. I struck an attitude worthy of Lady Macbeth,
though my bonnet-feathers were interfering with the boots
on the ceiling, and hissed at her, " My boots shall be made
to fit, or I will walk my way barefooted through this world,
and saying your prayers will not alter my resolution."
This brought matters to a climax. The husband appeared ;
the foot was measured ; one willful wOman had her way,
but the " stiefel frau " was stifled for once. Under such
circumstances, you can imagine how cheerful it is to do a
day's shopping.
In Kissingen we had such nice church privileges. We
think it hard to keep up our Grosse Pointe services on the
Sabbath, but Archdeacon Dealtry had a positive gift in
organizing and interesting all sorts of chance comers in the
church work. He was a very plain, practical man, so
bright and jolly, that you had to look twice before you
found out how thoroughly good he was. He never took a
"pious pose." In truth, you never thought of Mr. Dealtry
till afterwards, and then, in the quiet of your own cham
ber, you realized how well he had done his Master's busi
ness. There were hosts of Presbyterians who went blun
dering through the service just as we did, and who after
wards felt and thought as kindly as ourselves of the pastor.
Withal he had a very pleasant wife, and two sweet young
daughters. They were to be in Kissingen but a couple of
months, but they left their influence for long with the way
farers who gathered there for ever so short a season. I
carry with me always the hope of yet welcoming Mr. Deal-
try to our own dear land. I know he would enjoy America

270 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
and Americans, but I suppose they will keep him at home
and make a Bishop of him.
Imagine a month of days going on after the following
fashion : From six a. m. till eight, drink the waters and
walk, then walk and drink the waters ; eight till nine,
breakfast (on a cup of chocolate and a roll) ; nine till ten,
emulate the digestive process of an anaconda ; ten till
eleven, bathe ; eleven till one, listen to the violin and piano
music in the Conversation Hall; one till two p. m., the
inevitable table-d'hote; two till four, walk to a castle-
crowned hill, or by the river side, or through the paths in
the fields, or take the road to Altenburg (wliich is very
pretty), and there visit the salt springs that furnish us with
our sea-bathing — indeed, the walks are infinite in number,
if not in variety ; return in time for the band-music in the
garden, when everybody begins and drinks the waters
again, this time in every variety of demi and full toilet.
This question of dress, assumes year by year a more aggres
sive importance ; and although Kissingen is a very different
affair from Saratoga, it still manifests a certain effort at
fashion and show. It is true if a German woman has three
suits for the fashionable season she is uncommonly well
provided for. Many of their dresses are expensive, but
they lack all style ; there is no cut to a train, no fit to a
waist, no individuality to a bonnet. They wear light blue,
or China pink, or lavender purple dresses, with an uncon
scious faith in fine colors, that is wonderful to the American
eye ; and silk blonde lace, or dotted net, with as much satis
faction as if it was Pointe d'Alencon or de Venice. Occa
sionally a very fine costume would appear in the garden. I
recall one in particular — a light but peculiar bine dress,
with three plaits to a sailor waist, a sailor collar, and all the
facings a cream white, a white chip hat, with long cavalier

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 271
plume in blue. This sounds very flat, but I never saw
anytliing so perfect. There was a careless grace and fitness
that bespoke one of Worth's highest "inspirations." She
looked like no one else. You were scarcely conscious of
cut or make, but that woman, in that dress, would make her
posterity, in the year 2000, envy their grandmother her
taste. At seven p. m. we returned home and drank a cup of
milk in lieu of tea, comforting ourselves with an omelet or
beefsteak, after which I read aloud for an hour or two —
indeed, have conducted Dr. S. through quite a course of
light literature. I think, in twenty years, he never read
but one novel. This kind of change from thirty-three years
of such persistence of practice and reading of medicine
alone, had its trials, but in the end it will be a great gain,
for, I think, one's brains are as much benefited as one's
fields, by being allowed to lie fallow. Indeed, we left
Kissingen with regret, and the value of its wonderful waters
were markedly apparent in the Doctor. Quite a little of
his old bright color came back to his cheeks, his nervous
system took an entirely different tone, the sense of hurry
began to leave him, and for the first time he realized the
tension at which he had lived so long. Oh ! Mary, I may ,
often have, spoken deprecatingly and contemptuously of the
slowness of German and English life. I have thought of
our own bright, active, energetic business men, with their
superior wit and wisdom, and especially "go ahead," but I am
satisfied that there is too much drive to our best American
men. I remember once saying to an overworked lawyer,
who began at seven a. m. and dropped work at eleven p. m.:
" Do you not think you are burning the candle of your life
at both ends?" He smiled, and answered a little sadly,
" It will be all there is of the candle." Is not this a mental

272 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
suicide ? Here it has taken an intelligent medical man
three months to begin to rest. Think of the fearful impetus
with which he must have lived and worked, and how uncon
scious all this time he was of the overstrain. Now, in my
thankfulness that this knowledge has not come too late, I
am humble enough to learn any lesson from my more phleg
matic neighbors that inculcates rest and recuperated ener
gies. And I am not alone, every day I encounter here and
there some overstrained, irritable man, who cannot rest
even when the opportunity has come, but he is always an
American. I. G. D. S.

Dresden, November 20,-1875.
Deae Maet — Traveling is all very well, and sight-seeing
more or less delightful ; but ever since the primal mother
of mankind felt that she had nothing to wear, there comes
a time when one must stop and get the outer rind recon
structed ; and if I am to tell you all I have seen and suf
fered in achieving this purpose, I might as well open early
upon the question of shopping.
We left home suddenly before the spring styles had
reached Detroit ; and indeed, to get a dress that is satisfac
tory is always such a struggle, that I procrastinate worse on
that point than on any other, and sometimes go from season
to season absolutely shabby. During the summer of 1874
we were building the Home of the Friendless, and I con
sequently wore that season what I chanced to have, so that
by the spring of 1875 I was in a shocking state of destitu
tion, but I said to myself : " When I reach London, or
Paris, or Brussels, I will get what I need easy enough ;
what is the use of worrying when one has so much to do
and think of that is of so much greater importance." So I

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 273
left home with the hopeful spirit that inspires the Irish
emigrant to believe that the streets of New York are paved
with gold.
In London we were too busy to shop much, and there
seemed nothing there to suit my requirements. " Store
clothes," that is to say, ready-made suits, are not adaptable
to a person of my exceptional feet and inches — and then,
too, I abominate them. Still I looked a little, and found a
rather pretty traveling suit of debiege that I. possibly might
have taken had it come within half a foot of the ground.
It cost six guineas, which is $30 in gold, or $35 in currency ;
it was sewed in a most hap-hazard manner, and had no more
fit to it than any of those " made-to-sell " things have. We
bought two-button gloves for four shillings and sixpence
per pair — the finest French gloves ; this in currency was
$1.35, and was reasonable enough ; but they proved an ugly
fit, and ripped with a persistence that was exasperating.
In Brussels, we paid five francs, or about $1.20, for gloves
that tore abominably. There they had some pretty suits at
about English prices, but if / needed one I must wait a
week at least, and as we were all anxious to reach' that
" settled home " which has always been the ignis fatuus of
onr travels, I determined to risk getting something to wear
in Germany, or ordering from Paris. In Wiirzburg their
best dressmakers did such slovenly work, and did cut their
clothes in such a shiftless, forlorn fashion, that what little
vanity I had came to the surface, and stimulated me to put
some patches on a two year old summer silk, and look like
a lady who had seen better days. In the meantime B. and
J. had gone to Munich, and I wrote to them they must buy
me something ; but they replied I had better see what I
could do in Kissingen— it was a mild Saratoga, and I might
there be able to get something. Material was reasonable

274 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
enough there of certain kinds, but the best goods came
from England and France, and cost as much as with us.
I then wrote to Carter's in Paris and in Thnne, and found a
traveling dress would cost me there three hundred francs, or
$70 in currency. The duties are very high between France
and Germany, and the expressage in advance of the " United
States" or "American Express" at home. To take all the
chances of ordering under these circumstances was more
than I chose to risk. In Kissengen I found one or two
ready-made dresses that were tolerable, but were not avail
able for me, and the private dressmaking was simply horrid.
During all this time I grew shabbier and shabbier, and more
and more Ishmaelitish. I bound and re-bound the skirts
of my black silk and old grey, and again wrote to Munich
that I must, for the respectability of my country, have
something to wear ; whereupon J. and M. and B. set forth,
and selected the best establishment in Munich for tlieir
purchases. They ordered a pretty and not very expensive
dress that was to cost $30 currencj', and I waited to receive
it that I might go to Heidelberg. At the end of three
weeks they said they could not undertake to get the dress
done before the middle of the next month, which would be
three weeks later ! They then went to a rival modiste, and
got the promise of dresses within a fortnight, for me and for
themselves. The end of it was, that about the 19th of July
we all met in Heidelberg and arrayed ourselves in our
German suits. M.'s looked rather graceful and pretty, but
was not up in quality to one she would have worn at home,
and it seemed to stretch out of shape beyond any dress I
ever saw. J.'s was such a funny dress that we did nothing
but laugh at her ; every time the slightest breeze blew she
seemed to inflate like a new balloon, and we lived in con
stant apprehension of seeing her sail skyward. B.'s had a

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 275
very pretty drape to the skirt, but the waist fitted abomin
ably. As for my own, the modiste evidently imagined,
in spite of the pattern sent, that I was as broad as I was
long ; it was taken in and taken in and taken in, till I began
to think I also was " taken in " every time, especially as
each " reef in the waist " cost me a thaler. Then we found
all this sewing had been done with a single-thread sewing
machine, and when the hems began to run out of the ruffles
and the braids off the skirts, not even the arrowy Rhine
could have flown swifter. In fact, Dr. S. looked at us all
in such a discouraged spirit every time we appeared in our
new clothes, that we were inspired to struggle still longer
with our old ones.
Before I left home, so many said to me, " You can live
so cheap abroad." Mrs. M., who had spent some time in
Europe, was a shrewd observer, and had force of char
acter enough to see and admit the truth, said (as I may have
remarked in a former letter) : " Yes, you can live cheap in
Europe — so you can on Croghan street if you want to;"
which means simply this — that bread and meat, tea, coffee
and sugar,, rent and fuel, all cost just as much in Germany
as in Detroit ; but that if you live in accordance with the
habits of the country, and take but a "brodchen" (a roll)
and cup of coffee for your breakfast, and buy tliree gros-
chen's worth (about ten cents) of cold ham from the
butcher's for your tea, and occupy three or four rooms
where at home the family has spread itself over sixteen or
twenty, and have four dinner portions sent for six persons,
and keep a family of five or six warm twenty-four hours
with one small hod of coal put into a queer porcelain con
cern in the corner that looks like a family monument, and
should have inscribed upon it, " Sacred to the memory of
departed fires," you can do it for a comparatively small sum

276 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
of money ; but if you buy such a roast of beef as you do
at home, and other things in proportion, you will inevitably
pay more than in Detroit, and as much as in New York.
I do not say that dry goods are cheap at home, but I can
truly say, that all over the United States you buy a very
superior class of goods to what you can here. In the mat
ter of gloves, I clung to a pair of undressed kids I bought
at Newcomb & Endicott's for $1.50, till they outlasted two
pairs of gloves that cost me 87£ cents currency. I have of
late worn Swiss undressed kids at 87£c that have done good
service, but that is a mere chance. I was always dainty
about gloves, but I assure you at any of our reliable stores
you can buy a better glove for a dollar than, with one
exception, I have ever been able to buy here. Good cotton
goods — such, as a class, as New York Mills and Wam-
sutta — cost 30 cents currency. I had hoped to buy some
napiary at a low price, but find I must pay for a really nice
napkin from $10 to $13 currency. This is not alone my
experience. Miss J. W., writing from Geneva, says: "B.
is right — better freeze than buy such a sealskin sacque as
you describe those in Dresden ; they are no better here. In
London or Paris you can get what you want, but no place
else — I will wait." Miss H. D., from the south of France,
says : " We have not nearly as nice a choice of fancy work
as at home, and it costs just as much."
No, Mary, when I consider the tariff of the United States
on all articles of luxury, and then consider tlie superior
quality of the goods sold by our merchants, I feel that in
years gone by I have misjudged them. From the adver
tisements in the New York and Detroit papers, it is evident
you are paying no more now than the inside figure here.
Unless I find an astonishing change in prices in Paris I shall
buy very little on this side of the Atlantic, really preferring

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 277
to trust our own honest dealers, than leaving myself at the
mercy of shopkeepers, who " see you are an American,"
and charge accordingly, they having had much experience
with that careless, free-handed people. I hear occasionally
of some lady who goes home with $15,000 worth of laces
for her own use, and then am not surprised that the custom
house regulations become more and more stringent. I
only can account for women shoppers in this way by the
theory, that at home, they had become so accustomed to
our ruinous credit system, as to neither realize what they
spend nor what they pay. A woman who lets her dry
goods bill run until she has made a permanent heartache
between herself and her husband, is scarcely as much to
blame as the man who has too little confidence in his wife
to trust her with money, and so puts in her way the temp
tation of misusing his credit, she believing, as he himself
does, that large wealth is just within his grasp. Report
after report comes to us here of " tight times " and " innu
merable failures " at home, and I begin to be ashamed,
under these circumstances, to hear that " the Americans
are the best dressed people in the world." I think when
I get home I shall wear my Munich dress entirely out, and
lay its remains up in lavender, that in future I may remem
ber the moderation of the German nation. They may not
be as well dressed as we are, but they are quite as comfort
able, and much more content than the' women of America.
They wear a cloak or dress, or bonnet, till it is worn out,
and what is more, they wear it in the fashion in which it
was first made. From the highest to the lowest they look
comfortable, and common and respectable, and in good
enough taste, too. 'To be sure, the young ladies wear blues.
and greens and purples, that make B.'s blood run cold, but
to me this introduction of a bright color here and there is

278 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
no detriment, especially where there is no sunshine to
refract it.
In September my winter trunk came from London, and I
can assure you I am now wearing my last year's bonnet,
furs, dresses, etc., without a stitch of change, and am as
well dressed as any one in this vicinity, and much better
than most. There is such a pretty young German girl in
our house who buys a piece of tarletan for which she pays
about two dollars, and makes her own dresses for the ball ;
and as she has great beauty as well as taste, she always has
a very sweet and distinguished air. We have not thought
her a person who amounted to much, and yet when yon
consider that at eighteen years of age she plays the piano
exquisitely, reads and speaks Englisli well, makes all her
own and her mother's dresses and cloaks, makes the desserts
for a family of twelve (I ache to give her a lesson or two in
the use of eggs, flour and sugar, for she needs it), and goes
into a reasonable amount of society, she practically amounts
to a great deal. It is true it takes her two hours to appre
hend a joke, and much longer to comprehend a principle,
and when she has mastered both she lays them carefully
but gladly aside, as things that were too much for her ; but
she may outgrow this peculiarity sooner than an American
girl can grow into habits of industry and method.
We hear so much about work, and a woman's right to
work, and all that. It's true enough, her avenues of labor
might be increased ; but here, as well as in the United
States, all skilled labor commands its price. A first rate
teacher commands good, though not large, pay ; in music,
with an established reputation and a fair clientelle, he gets
from $1.25 to $4 a lesson. Education is far from cheap —
in fact nothing is cheap ! ! If ever the currency question
of the United States is on a settled and permanent basis,

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 279
and one dollar in American money will represent one dollar
in gold coin, then the products of Europe will not strike
travelers as being cheap, unless our tariff is of a kind to
tempt people to smuggle. I have no respect for the judg
ment of Congressmen who seek to protect home manufac
tures by excessive duties — for instance, in the matter of
carpets we pay 60 per cent, duty for an English carpet, and
a wise woman can afford to ; for the weaving, the wool, the
dyeing, the taste, and last but far from least the durability,
make one English carpet out-look and out-wear three of our
American-made Brussels carpets ; and yet one must either
pay this enormous tax, or buy the American article. Car
pets cost on this side for the best Brussels, $1.45 to $1.60
in currency. There is no reason why in the United States
an equally good article should not be produced for the same
price, except the haste to be rich, wliich seems to curse
every manufacturing enterprise in our country. Now, I
hear that the market is over-flooded with home manufac
tures, and the bonded warehouses bursting with foreign
importation that must be accepted or returned at a loss.
If it is best for the nation that we should wear homespun, let
them make us good homespun at a fairly remunerative price,
and let us don it with pride and pleasure for the country's
sake. The carnival of dress that came in with poor Mrs.
Lincoln, should be over, ought to be over, and sooner or later
must be over. There is neither sense nor principle in our
mad race after fashion and style, and especially change and
show — aye, and even comfort ; there is such a thing as try
ing to be too comfortable. A young American lady said to
me : " I never was ashamed of my country-women till I
saw them in Paris. There in the evening at the Pension,
every woman appeared with her day's shopping, and the
conversation was in this wise : ' Oh, it ought to have a
34

280 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
plastron in the back ! ' ' What a shame !' ' This bill is a
perfect fraud — the dress was only to cost 800 francs, and
this is for 1000, all just because I changed my mind about
the tie-back.' ' What do you think of my lace ? ' A wise
old party in the corner whispers with a shrug, ' Showy.'
And then the hats came out ; every one knew a Virot —
' Cheapest thing he had was about $30 currency.' " And
so it kept up for the three months she was at Mine. M.'s.
"Now," 6aid Miss M., "there are three of us; we have
$4,000 a year between us ; I do see so many beautiful
things that I want, I have a real love for photographs,
and they run away with so many dollars, that I could not
.but look at my fellow country-women and groan. Two-
thirds of them were about as well off as we were ; a few had
$2,500 or $2,000 ; they could stay in Europe as long as
that lasted, and they seemed to think there was no end of
such sums. We have been abroad two years and a-half ;
have studied and traveled leisurely, and seen thoroughly;
have bought many photographs, some Geneva jewelry, a
few nice corals, and have lived comfortably in good pen
sions and hotels ; sometimes have kept house. It has taken
calculation, but we have never been shabby, and rarely very
fashionable. We will go home benefited and profited in
body and mind by our years of stay and travel, but we have
eschewed the temptation of clothes, which, I confess, has
sometimes been very strong."
Mary, dear, I was not ashamed of my country-woman in
this instance ! As to gentlemen's clothes they are cheaper •
but oh, they do not look nearly so nice ; and when we get
back, if homespun is the country's wear, I certainly would
like to have an American cut ; indeed, the sign of " Ameri
can Tailor" is to be found in nearly every town where
Americans and English congregate.

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 281
P. S. — I have just read this over to the family, who
approve, but bid me tell Aunty how poor the shoes are.
One American pair is calculated to outwear three that are
German made. At D.'s I used to buy German, and at
N. & E.'s, English stockings. As I was making some last
purchases for the children on their voyage, the young clerk
showed me something for myself; "Oh no, thank you," I
replied, " we are going to the land of stockings." Mr. E.,
who was standing near me, gave me such a queer, odd little
smile, and dropped his hands, as if to say, " What is the
use — Mrs. S. never would credit my advice as being disin
terested — she is pretty well calculated to live and learn."
Many a time since I have thought of that withheld advice.
When I have inquired for a certain make of German stock
ings they never had that style — " these are much better."
At last I lost my temper, and said to the merchant, " The
very best goods that are made in Europe go to America ; I
can buy better things of your own manufacture there than
here." The man replied very frankly : " Certainly — why
not ? The Americans like their own styles, and will buy
the best ; these are much better,' and so cheap." Is a thing
that will not wear, ever cheap ? Here I expected to learn
lessons in the most advanced domestic economy, but as yet
I have seen many weak joints in that harness. First rate
economy means, to my mind, first rate calculation ; do not
fill your stomach with poor food because it is cheap ; do
not starve because the good things are dear. See what won
derful things you can do with a soup bone that costs you a
quarter. You can have the best of soup for two days, and
marrow-bones on toast, and hash, or a la mode stew or cro
quets enough for one dinner. If butter is too dear to eat at
three meals a day, have oatmeal and milk for one. Now,
this sort of calculation I have not yet seen ; everything is

282 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
kept under lock and key, but not, in my judgment, used to
the best advantage. With the resources one has at home,
if we only gave our minds to domestic matters, we could do
wonderful things, for the freshness and originality and
bright wit of an American woman is far superior to that of
other nations, who have worn the ruts of their life-road very
deep. I honestly believe that a large proportion of our Ameri
can women have high principle. They do not willingly or
designedly ruin their husbands, and when they are ruined,
are the first to come to the front and bear patiently the
brunt of misfortune. If men would but make women their
true partners in the struggle for existence or advancement,
women would be more thoroughly the helpmeets of tlieir
husbands than they are. Failures and frauds would be less
common. Who envies Miss Tweed to-day her $25,000
trousseau and $100,000 wedding cheque from her dear
papa, or the $150,000 worth of presents from Mr. Jim
Fisk, and all that set? Or who grudges poor, fast, foolish
Ralstone his bitter ending ?
Thousands of men, more or less, like these two, had
better have taken the advice of my dear old friend Mr. L.,
of Milwaukee, whose brother, a man worth in 1857, more
than half a million, came to him to report his fearfully
embarrassed condition, and said, " I am sick, perhaps dying ;
what is the best thing for me to do? " He replied, " The
best thing is to tell Annie." " Tell Annie ! no, never !
Why should I tell Annie till I am obliged to ? No, I will
not tell Annie." '•' Well," said Mr. L., " I will help you
with all my might if ybu will tell your wife ; we were
never very good friends, it is true, but there is a streak of
good in Annie, and if you want my help you must tell
Annie." And Annie was told, and the next day Mr. L.

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 283
found this cold, stiff woman not only ready for any sacrifice,
but only too anxious to put down the carriage and dismiss
the servants. In the end the gentleman only lost $200,000,
but after that he never hesitated to " tell Annie." I. G. D. S.

Paris, March 20, 1876.
Deae Makt — Since I last wrote you on the subject of
shopping, I have had the privilege of seeing Paris at its
spring flood-tide of "bargains," and so can now tell you
how things are managed in that great mart of elegance.
You remember in your last letter you said, " Perhaps your
views of shopping may change when you have once been to
the Bon Marehe." We reached Paris the latst week in
February in very reduced circumstances as to strength,
flesh, or outward adornments, and once there, I collapsed
and went to bed for a couple of days. After that I rose
and attempted to do a little work in the way of making
purchases and straggling with dressmakers. Of these latter,
Worth has a world-wide reputation ; he dresses the actresses,
singers, and stage people generally, and any foolish private
lady who goes to him must pay three prices for everything
he makes for her. Withal, he gives himself great airs, I
am told, and dictates in a manner that would not be to my
taste. In Jules Verne's dramatized " Trip to the Moon,"
I hear, he has done some wonders in arraying four ballet
dancers as little birds, with pink vests and pink muffs and
blue wings that folded into delicious little coat-tails ; but as
I saw these artistic costumes only in a photograph, I tell
you about them on hearsay. Hentenaar is said to have
the most " chic," or as we say, " style," and is even more
autocratic than Worth. Kingsbury adapts himself better

284 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
to the American taste and temper, but all these people
decline to touch anything for less than a thousand francs
($200), and will not give their "mind" to a limited order.
Then comes the Mesdames, or women dressmakers, who
rule the mande. I called on one or two of these, and at
twelve m. they received me in an elaborate toilet, with faces
rouged and powdered and painted in a most superior and
life-like manner. One of these saw from the glint of my
eye that I was not to be awed out of my old fogy notions,
and remarked, " Is Madame desirous of something in her
own style that we can execute for her ? "
Eventually I found a very satisfactory dressmaker, or
rather two or three of them, and really had beautiful work
done, but at prices as high and higher than those of the
United States. They have their various models furnished
them by some great mysterious head-center of fashion, and
work these out with such minor changes as they may
suggest to their bright work-women.
Paris teems with dressmakers and milliners, the latter
asking from fifty to two hundred francs, so that $40 was
rather high, but $30 the average price for particularly nice
bonnets of any sort.
One day a sharp little clerk in the Magasines du Louvre,
desirous of securing the business of our party, said to us :
" If you will wait till this day week, I can sell you this silk
for three francs less a metre." Woman-like, we waited,
and he was true to his word. The spring openings of the
great stores all take place on that day, and all the goods are
more or less reduced in price. It was a wonderful sight to
see these great stores — the Magasvne du Louvre, the Bon
Marche, Printemps, Le Pauvre Diable, Magasine de la
Paix, Au Petit St. Thomas, and a dozen lesser lights
— crowded with eager purchasers.

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 285
The Bon Marche has a world-wide reputation, and is a
wonderful store, or rather establishment ; in it you can buy
almost anything in the way of clothing that you may desire.
It covers an entire square, and has three or four places of
'ingress and egress; the ceilings are a little low, but each
department seems fairly lighted, and you can go from
counter to counter on the first floor, finding neckties, stock
ings, handkerchiefs, gloves, every species of woolen stuffs,
silks, cottons, linens, muslins, curtains, rugs, bonnets, fancy
goods, and a thousand and one other accessories, such as
linings, trimmings, etc. Then you ascend the stairs, and
there are ready-made dresses, underclothing, laces, corsets,
children's clothes, shawls, parasols, umbrellas, etc. — even
furs are kept here. The prices may be one or two per cent.
less than the Magasvne du Louvre, but the generality of
goods is not quite as finished and perfect in all respects as
in the higher priced store. The trained shopper seeks an
"occasion" or bargain, and by watching her time and
chance she finds many. The fact that for one whole week
a fourteen-franc silk is sold for ten, struck me as being very
curious. Every thread of it goes up again to the original
price on Saturday evening.
It had always been a theory and a hope with me, that in
, Paris we could, get all that was fine and perfect in gloves.
Imagine my astonishment when in the Magasine de Louvre,
the very best great store in Paris, the gloves fell short of
my expectations. They were cheap enough, a three-button
glove costing one dollar and ten cents currency, but they
had all manner of little defects. The head glove-clerk was
an extremely intelligent young Frenchman who understood
fitting a glove to perfection. When a pair were handsomely
adjusted, I turned and said, " Yes, a very pretty fit ; but
the glove is not perfect." "Oh yes, Madame, it has no

286 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
imperfection — c'est sans defaut." "Now," I said, "look
at this, and this, and this," pointing to a little starting of a
seam, a slight difference in the texture of the skin used for
the thumb and that used for the hand, and a few scarcely
perceptible failures ; " this is not a perfect glove, and at
home I would not take it." "That is all very true," he
made answer, " these are not such gloves as you buy ; see
what a price you pay for them over there — two dollars and
a-half for a pair of gloves, and these cost but one dollar."
"I did not ask you for a cheap glove, but for your very
best." "Indeed, Madame, these are our very best — the
very best that nine hundred and ninety-nine persons in a
thousand ever think of using ; but you are right — they are
not the perfect glove you have been in the habit of buying ;
the truth is, the veet best gloves made all go to the United
States. You do not care what you pay, and you will have
it perfect in America; but no Frenchman or German is
going to wear gloves that cost so much ; these are nice and
handsome and good enough. I will tell you where yon can
order a better ; it will take four weeks to have your order
filled, and they will cost you two dollars currency."
Then I said to myself, maybe you are more nice than
wise ; if these are good enough for all France, suppose you
try and put up with them.
In Paris the one thing that set me wild was the display
of precious stones in the galleries of the Palais Royal.
Such diamonds, such wonderfully carved and cut and pol
ished gems, that recalled that breast plate of Aaron the
high priest — "A sardius, a topaz, a carbuncle, an emerald,
a sapphire, a diamond, a ligure, an agate and an amethyst, a
beryl, an onyx and a jasper."
There was an opal and diamond necklace in one of the
windows that for six weeks won my daily admiration. Had

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 287
I been rich I certainly would have bought it to look at. I
often thought it was old Hebrew blood within me that
stirred and wakened at the sight of precious stones and old
pictures. In Geneva a jeweler was showing me various beautiful
stones, and said : " But you seem to know all their names
and colors and differences ; have you ever studied the sub
ject ? " " Only in the Book of Revelations," I replied. He
laughed such a merry, pleasant laugh, and produced such
topaz and amethyst, that even while I write my heart and
memory glows with the reflex of their magnificent colors.
I cannot tell you how nice people were in this respect,
for I never deluded any one into being polite to a prospect
ive purchaser. I frustrated all that sort of hope at the
beginning of an interview, bought promptly what I had
to buy, and stated that any inquiry I made afterwards
was simply to gratify an interest or curiosity. In this con
nection I ought to make mention of a whole morning spent
in the Compagnie des Lndes, 80 Rue Richelieu. I bought
what I desired, paid for the same, and then said : " Lace in
all its different varieties is very interesting to the American.
What little we know we learn by instinct and chance com
parison more than any other way. We are very much
obliged to you for your politeness in showing us so much."
" Oh, Madame," said the gentleman, " you see we are not
busy to-day, and if it interests you and you would spend
another hour or so we would esteem it a great pleasure to
have you see a great deal more of our lace systematically."
And if yon will believe it, he began with the poorest,
thinnest real thread, and went up. He showed us the dif
ference between Chantilly and Brussels lace ; the increase
of thickness of the fineness ; the beginning and perfection
of the shading of the flowers. And then came Point

288 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
d'Aguille and Point d'Alencon and Point d'Venise, so that
for two hours B. and I went through a course of instruction
that I shall never forget. At last I said : " There is no end
to this, and I cannot tax you any further." "Ah," he
replied, " now you must stay to see what we have for the
American Exposition." He produced about twenty-five
inches of lace half a yard deep, and I do positively assure
you it was as pretty as a picture — a picture of the loveliest
flowers and leaves — the very ghost of flowers — not ghastly,
dead things, but spirits, phantoms, shadows, that were living,
sentient, soul-like things without any thick corporeal frame.
Of course you wonder "what it cost?" Just $2,500 in
gold ; 25 by 18 inches of woman's work — and it was worth
the money.
One day after I had shopped for pretty much everything,
the Doctor came in and asked me to go with him and inter
view a wonderful old gentleman who constructed facsim
iles of " morbid anatomy " — tremendous eyes and ears, and
lungs and brains. Here my French was put to a pretty
stiff test, but Madame, his wife, came in, and although she
did not speak a word of English, I was able, with her help, •
to get out of a difficulty about a throat and a larynx. The
old gentleman had exhausted his own brain on the wonder
ful fac-simile of a brain, which was his last work, and he
stood there a helpless wreck ; but the patience with which
Madame aided him, and the gentle pity of her appeal to
him, the sweet and tender way in which she called him
" mon ami" made even buying ears and eyes, and larynxes,
agreeable. One thing I constantly noticed on the continent, and even
more in England, and that was the fact that everything
was in style in the way of household decoration and adorn
ment ; no one hesitates or feels shabby in using a thing that

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 289
has long been "passe" in our own hurrying country. It is
true, when one buys a new thing, she naturally endeavors
to have it in a new pattern, but old things are always
respectable. In Paris one could live handsomely and dress
very nicely for a less sum than in any other great city in
the world ; nothing is wasted — the merest bone, or the old
gilt trimming on an officer's epaulet, is made to do some
service till it is reduced at last to its original elements.
Some other time I will tell you of the beauty and cleanli
ness of Paris, but just now must confine myself to its shop
ping privileges. Here you can buy everything; but articles
of luxury, taste and artistic skill are those that do most
abound. The fans are something exquisite — lace and pearl and
tortoise shell, and painted silk or ostrich feathers. Their
cost is from $30 to $60 currency. Bronze and imita
tion bronze is a specialty. Clocks and marbles, oxidized
silver ornaments, porcelain in a thousand lovely shapes and
designs abound. But the goblin tapestry made even me
actually long for no end of money — it was all my fancy
painted it, and more. Oh, I know how I could make one
small library perfect with $10,000 (which would not include
the books). If I lived in Paris the " old curiosity shops "
would keep me poor and half starved. J. and B. had no
sympathy with this taste of mine, but M. R. and I were of
one mind, and when we had a day out together we reveled
in impossible plans. Dr. S. laid down the law on several
important points. He said: "No, I will not take home
'a Kerry cow,' or an 'Alderney;' no 'donkey,' no 'Shet
land pony,' no ' Dutch clock,' no unsightly old wood boxes
with impossible ' dragons on them,' no chairs that are only to
look at because the sea-sick ' cherubs thereon spout ' foam
ing bile : no ' Portland vases,' no vermin infected ' Vene-

290 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
tian cabinets,' no ' scenes of the middle ages,' no ' lace ' that
may have been exhumed from the grave, or rotted itself to
a fashionable color on a basswood ' Virgin Mary.' " So
you see I was not allowed to exercise my taste in any out-of-
the-way direction. Maine R. and I used to go off by our
selves to these wonderful bric-a-brac establishments, and
clasp each other's hands and sigh over the tyranny of
unfeeling husbands and aunts, and sacrifice our feelings
unlimitedly, while J. and B. and the Doctor shot all sorts
of criticisms at us when we described a few of the things
we had not bought.
The one-hundredth part of what I saw to buy in Paris
would " swamp " the Messenger, and it is such a trial not to
tell you about them ; but I might as well stop first as last,
for I only got the necessaries of life after all.
We spent a. few days in London, where I visited some of
their handsomest stores, but neither in Germany, England,
Belgium nor France did I see after all, any establishment
that for satisfactory elegance, equaled A. T. Stewart's great
store on the corner of Broadway and Tenth street, New
York. One pouring London day I went off to Paternoster Row
to buy some Bibles, and I did have such a nice time. Five
years ago my children gave me a reference-index Bible with
the qnaint rubric of the middle ages. My brother G. said,
"Now use red ink to line your special passages so that it will
be black and red throughout." Oh, the comfort I have had
out of that soft-covered volume. The old question used to
be, ' ' Do you read the Bible ? " Yes, I read my Bible ; I
had read it all my life ; we read it through every two years
at home, so that twenty times that blessed volume had been
poured through my mind, and the most of it — may God
forgive me— had gone in at one ear and out at the other ;

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 291
it was a mere mechanical process. But a dozen years ago I
began to "search the Scriptures," and with the aid of my
index and concordance I can track out now any grand prin
ciple of life or doctrine — any sweet and tender, or patiently
heroic history ; oh, I can find anything. And so I had four
or five friends to whom I meant to carry a Bible — the cus
tom house could get no duty on that. I went to Bagster's
and to Eyre & Spottiswoode's, and bought exactly what I
wanted ; and this is what J. O. says since she has used
it: "It is a significant and comforting sign of the times
that God's word, pure and simple, is growing to be the
great aliment of the Christian mind of this century. Bag
ster's and Eyre's Bibles contain only the helps to searching
the Scriptures — the whole Scriptures." Dr. Pitcher said to
me years ago, when I was mourning the death of an old
friend, whose wee baby was left motherless in the world —
" Yes, she was a good woman, and there are a great many
other good women who never think of obeying God's law.
If she had read the rules of health and life that God gave
to Moses, and obeyed them, her goodness would have been
more apparent to me, and she would have been living now."
What are the teachings of Dr. E. H. Clarke to the teachers
and parents of this land but a practical application of the
Levitical law ? And it will not be the faith alone, but the
faith and practice of God's precepts that will yet govern us.
I saw how these books were bought. The man said :
"Americans think them so cheap that we sell large numbers
to the United States." They cost about $8 in London, but
with us $14 is asked, and now that I am home, I only wish
I had brought forty Bibles, but am very well satisfied
that I did not break my heart because I could not have
"a tapestried chamber" or a "Kerry cow." I. G. D. S.

292 MRS. MORSE STEWART. Detroit, July 20, 1876.
Deae Maey — As several of your friends were sarcastic
enough to express a wish to know what I found that was
" entirely " satisfactory in Europe, and as I did find a num
ber of places, things and people that were so, I will begin
to make mention of them with Heidelberg, which is rarely
"beautiful for situation" — in fact it has always been the
headquarters of romance. Longfellow, in his sentimental
little prose poem, " Hyperion " (old fashioned and out of
date now), gives some very pretty descriptions, almost as
accurate, of this German town, as Hawthorne's " Marble
Faun " is of Rome. As for G. P. R. James, his " solitary
horseman " appears, reappears and disappears constantly, in
his novel called " Heidelberg ;" and greater and lesser liter
ary lights than these write tenderly of the castle and hamlet
of Heidelberg, that in the thirteenth century was raised to
the dignity of a town.
From this time it became for five centuries the capital of
the Palatinate of the Rhine, till the Elector Palatin, Philip,
was driven to such a state of distraction and desperation by
the disputes between Protestants and Romanists, that he
took himself and his court off to Mannheim.
I think it was in 1518 that Luther held his celebrated
disputation in the Augustine Monastery, under Friedrich
II., who favored the Reformation. The first Protestant
worship was held in the Church of the Holy Ghost ; this
must have been about 1550, at which time the Emperor, by
way of keeping things fair and square, had a wall built
across the middle of the church, and gave one end to the
Protestants and the other to the Romanists.
In 1875 the Protestant end was our place of worship, the

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 293
Established Church of Scotland having provided a minister
and held service there for several years.
As for the church edifice, it was rather a spooky, pokerish
place at the best, but this astonishing wall of division gave
one an impression of worshiping God from the bottom of a
well. I think the damp, cold, dismal, forlorn church edifice
would have proved too much for the small members of the
family, had it not been for the astounding appearance of
the organ-blower on a kind of treadmill, who sailed majes
tically up into a little square aperture, and then as suddenly
went off like a man in a fit every time the bellows was
inflated. What he did when out of sight, or why he did it,
we never knew, but I shall always feel grateful to him, he
was such a comfort to Robbie, who otherwise would have
been woefully tried by the religious services.
We Americans think a hundred years great things, but
the centuries seem to ran so fast in that old world, that I
was perpetually swept away by the flood-tide of general
history, and after some time concentrated my ideas in the
Thirty Years' war, which was the culmination of all that
went before, and the cause of much that has followed after.
The moral sentiment of Germany and the present status of
women were greatly influenced, there can be no doubt, by a
fight enduring so many years — thirty years swarnred over
by a soldiery who knew no moral law, no civil law, and not
very much military law.
The town of Heidelberg is at the base of a short but
high range of mountains, which form the most effective
of backgrounds, as they are covered with the loveliest of
forest growth. It does not exceed half a mile in width
and two in length, being bounded laterally by the River
Neckar on the one side, and these mountain-hills on the
other. All who have seen Turner's picture of this beautiful

294 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
town, and afterwards the place itself, realize that he gave
the effects rather than the facts of its situation, for he
twists the River Neckar as nature never twisted it, and puts
the bridge where it suits himself and his enchanting lights
and shade, instead of where it actually spans the river.
The streets of the city are for the main part narrow, sew-
erless affairs, with high old German houses, made not only
endurable, but picturesque, with luxuriant growing ivy, and
curious gable windows.
The great promenade of the town is what is called the
"Anlage," a wide street with houses on one side, but on the
other what is practically a small park two hundred feet
wide and three-quarters of a mile long. This park has
winding walks, beautiful shrubbery, trees and flowers, and
what at times seemed to me better than all, the nicest of
seats. Oh, how I wish we could introduce the French and
German custom of living in the open air. It was our habit
to take book or knitting or embroidery with us, or even a
German-exercise grammar, and sitting out on the Anlage,
perform whatever task we might have in hand. It was
not necessary, as in dear old Detroit, to go into a store and
buy something simply that one might get a seat.
We had it in heart to introduce this innovation on Jeffer
son avenue, but are assured that the seats will only become
the rendezvous for ragamuffins, loafers, vagabonds, drunken
men, and the irrepressible small boy, or what the city locals
call "little vags" of the period. It is evident we are too
free to be comfortable.
The crowning glory of Heidelberg is its castle, the oldest
part of which was built towards the end of the thirteenth
century. To reach it involves a half mile walk, in which
you rise three hundred and thirteen feet. There are vari
ous modes of access to it, however, the least pleasant but

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 295
most expeditious being by a very narrow street, lined with
old, dingy, and in some instances dilapidated houses, and
spanned at one place by the old city gate, a square, substan
tial tower, which gives shelter to several dozen families, and
smells past description. Another and more beautiful way,
but much more difficult of ascent, has a shaded path, walled
on one side by the rocks', and green with tree and hedge on
the other — just the place for a pair of sentimental lovers ;
but anything so indecorous as a lover is tabooed in
" Deutschland." It is therefore not as useful as it is orna
mental. There is yet another passage, but fearfully trying to the
spinal column, called the Roman stairs. I climbed them
once, and came near going to a better country, leaving my
remains to be labeled and filed away with the verdict,
" Want of breath, the cause of death." This brings us to
the Elizabethan gate, built by the Elector Frederick V, in
honor of his consort, Elizabeth of England, who by the bye
was the daughter of James I. of England, and granddaugh
ter of. Mary, Queen of Scots. This Elizabeth must have
been a good deal of a woman, for the castle being in her
time two centuries old, was naturally in need of repair.
She added largely to it, and very thoroughly restored the
old building, doing wonders in the way of garden-making,
forming great plateaus of ground out of the very hillside
itself, and then planting them with the trees of all countries.
It was to the heirs of this line that the Englisli succession
fell after the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty in the direct
line. The gardens and castle, with tlieir historic record, have
been a shrine to the English tourists. After a walk of five
minutes from the Elizabethan gate to the Courtyard gate,
we entered through another archway opening into a large
court, always thronged during summer with carriages of

296 MRS. MORSE STEWART.
tourists or sight-seers. At the right hand is a great old-fash
ioned draw-well, and alongside of this a portion of the
building had been used for stables ; from these stables to
the front of the castle runs a dilapidated wing of the castle
about five hundred feet in length. This is four stories
high, and beautifully ornamented with carved figures and
rich architectural designs. In this section we see the
remains of the great old chimney which fills the entire
corner of a room used as the kitchen, and is twelve feet
across the front. Here a whole ox was spitted and roasted
for the knights' table, and around the angles of this chimney
scullions and gentlemen alike toasted themselves. The
rooms for the main part had evidently been comfortable,
and a great household could have distributed itself with a
rough and ready ease, that, according to all romance-writers,
was very delightful and not entirely inelegant.
On the left of the entrance is the Rnprecht building,
built in 1300, and the old chapel; forming almost a right
angle with this is the Frederick building, built in 1600.
Facing the court on this building are four rows of statues
of sixteen kings or emperors, together with genii, cornuco
pias and birds, as well as the Goddess of Justice with sword
and balance ; in case people were not satisfied with the way
she used her scales, she relieved herself of further bothera
tion by cutting their heads off. In this building is the new
chapel ; also the great tun, that is 24 feet high and 20 feet
long, and would hold about twenty-five hundred bottles of
wine, had it not become rather earlier in the day a huge
rats' nest. Here, too, we have quite a collection'of antiques,
including portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots, James I., his
daughter Elizabeth, and a direct line from her to old
George I. of England.
But the glory of the castle is the balcony, which yon

LETTERS FROM ABROAD. 297
reach by going through 'a long archway, that in these
times would be called a tunnel. It is a wide rampart with
a stone wall and coping, three feet and a-half or four feet
high, with a sentry-tower at each end. From this there is
a charming view over town and river, and low-lying
lands beyond. Twice this Heidelberg castle has been
burnt, and old Melac in 1688 tried to blow up a tower
twelve feet thick, but after exhausting his skill, gunpowder
and satanic temper for a period of two weeks, only suc
ceeded in dislodging about a third of it. Over this disman
tled ruin the friendly ivy has crept for maiiy a long year,
until now it is the most lovely of all the views of the castle.
Words fail to give any adequate idea of the castle and its
surrounding grounds, and it is universally conceded to be
the finest rain on the continent.
As we returned from our tenth visit I could not refrain
from making a long observation of the " Zum Ritter Haus,"
which is in the Hauptstrasse of the town, the oldest build
ing in Heidelberg. It was the great hostelry of the
knights, who came to pay tlieir homage to the court. It is
a quaint, gabled, much-decorated old house, with a certain
dignity of decay, that leads one to think wistfully of days
when simplicity reigned.
In Heidelberg one can spend a great deal of satisfactory
time. There nature is beautiful, history is attractive, the
rains of age are seldom mouldy; woods and water — for
est or vine-clad hillside — mountains or far reaching plain-
music, and the clear, keen mountain air — odd stone shrines,
such as " Luther's Pulpit," or the " Konigstuhl," and the
" Riesenstein," or springs like the "Wolfs-Brunnen," or the
" Prince's Fountain " — hedge or wall — all are redolent of
pleasant thoughts and sweet imaginings ; and I shall ever
tenderly remember dear old Heidelberg in all its glow of
summer and autumn. I. G. D. S.

Jt. M>ovlq for thz WLnion.

England's heavy chains oppressed us,
And her foot had held us down,
Till the People, full of fury,
Raised the shout, "Resist the Crown !¦'
All the Nation heard the watchword —
Every town sent up the cry,
Answering, like a solemn echo,
" We will conquer or will die ! "
Then were seen
The brave Thirteen,
Fighting for our liberty.
All New England's heroes wakened,
With the courage wrongs inspire —
Nerved themselves to stand the struggle,
Dare and brave old England's ire,
While from every hill and valley,
Thronging came an answering band,
Poorly clad, half armed, but heroes,
And for Freedom took their stand :
Then were seen
The brave Thirteen,
Winning us a free-born land.
Victory crowned their gallant struggle —
God alone they owned as King —
And they stood, a free born people,
Sheltered by the Almighty's wing,
While their statesmen and their heroes,
To a compact set their hand —
; All our strength lies in our Union ;
To the world as one we'll stand ! "
The Old Thirteen,
Since then have been,
Honored and blest in every land.

SONG FOR THE UNION. 299

Oh ! the contrast time now shows us !
Scarce a hundred years have passed,
And the smothered mutterings warn us
This will be the Union's last.
Last ! Virginia, you who gave us
Our dear Father, Statesman, Chief,
Can you let the life he fought for —
A great Nation's — be so brief ?
Strife between
The Old Thirteen !
Never let that sight be seen !

Georgia ! whose chivalric soldiers
Proved the worth of gentle blood,
When the enemy struck so boldly,
And o'erswept you like a flood —
Will you turn your steel against those
Who, when in your direst need,
Came to strengthen those proud spirits ?
Georgians, dare you say, " Secede " ?
Blood between
That Old Thirteen,
Brothers both in word and deed !

Thy records, Carolina, point
Where the first for Freedom fell ;
By the mother who thus bore you,
Will you bid us all farewell ?
Wild and willful, proud, impatient,
Haughtj' sister, have you known
Through your turbulent life we loved you
For a beauty of your own —
Loved you truly,
Even unduly,
And could never have you gone ?

500 MRS. MORSE STEWART.

By the memories of the Keystone —
By the Jerseys' blood- stained snows —
By old Empire's glorious battles —
By the record of our foes ;
By Schuyler, Knox, old Putnam, Greene-
By Marion's men, and Harry Lee,
Let us forget all party strife,
And only know that we are free !
The world has seen
What we have been —
Oh ! still preserve the Old Thirteen !

With what blindness are we smitten,
Brother thus opposing brother —
In the Nation's past 'tis written,
Freedom is our glorious mother !
You can count her pangs of travail
In the banner waving o'er us ;
History tells the wreck and carnage
That o'erspread her when she bore us.
Shall love languish,
When her anguish
Beacon like, still floats before us ?

Palsied be the lips that frame it —
Helpless fall that foeman's arm ;
Turn his fiercest strength to weakness,
Who would do a brother harm !
And, O God ! wilt thou take vengeance
On who e'er, by word or deed,
Broadcast o'er our noble country,
Sowed disunion's fruitful seed ?
Curse the tongue
Of old or young,
Who shouts the battle-cry, " Secede! "

SONG FOR THE UNION. 301

God, our Lord, be thou our support —
Thou our stay in this dark hour ;
Guide us through these angry mazes
By Thine over-seeing power ;
Blast the rage of party sections ;
Cause such war and strife to cease ;
Give us — greatest gift to nations —
Give us Union, Love, and Peace !
The Old Thirteen
On Thee shall lean —
Lord, let their mutual love increase !

Cast to the breeze that banner still,
With not one single star erased,
With not one single stripe effaced ;
Shout, with a hearty, brave good will-
" Let nought our happy land dissever —
The Union one, and one forever ! ! "
Wake the wide echoes with the pean—
The Union, and the Old Thirteen !

A REQUIEM and A WELCOME

The Years 1865-1866.

%\tz ma atxd tfte Hew IJear.

Weary and slow tolls the bell,
In the knell
Of the passing year,
While the bier,
With its bearers all,
And its snowy pall,
Bends o'er the yawning grave
Of Time's Slave.
Let a sepulchre vast
Garner the dying past;
Heap a cairn upon her breast,
For now she enters rest.
Out of the midnight gloom,
Around her yawning tomb,
Shadowy spectres rise;
And with wild, wistful eyes
Look their last
On the Dead Past.
Viewless are the troop who come,
With white lips and dumb,
To lament the war-worn year,
And drop a hallowed tear
O'er the mother who there lies —
She who garnered all the sighs
Of the wounded and the slain,
On the land and on the main.

THE OLD AND THE NEW YEAR. 303
They welcome, while they weep,
Her last sleep ;
'Tis the dead who thus bewail
The Nation's grail.
* * * * *
Merrily ring the chimes
Of these altered times.
Weep no more.
One life is o'er,
But in its parting throes,
The dear old year bestows
A smiling heir,
Far more fair.
With her life the birth-pang 's o'er,
And the child that victory bore
Is named Peace.
Oh precious Peace 1
***** Rosy, dimpled, azure-eyed,
She is both our love and pride ;
May she clasp unto her breast
All the golden hopeful West,
And kiss, with her baby mouth,
All the sore hearts of the South.
May the mothers of a race
Worthy of fame's highest place,
Give her woman's tenderest care,
May they comfort her despair;
May the thousand sundered ties,
All the bitter thoughts that rise,
All the sin of this wild strife
Rest, wiped out with last year's life ;
And when this young year shall close,
When we knell to its repose,
The fair soul of our white Dove,
Let Time's offspring then be Love.

fgstract frmix HK20. Stewart's 'SSIill.

"In the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and
with entire reliance upon His faithful promise (Isaiah: xliii, 1-3), I,
Isabella Graham Duffield Stewart, of the City of Detroit, Wayne County,
Michigan, wife of Dr. Morse Stewart, do make and publish this my last
will and testament :
" I give and bequeath to my beloved husband the great old Bible
given me by my father, leaving with it my prayer that he may find
therein comfort and strength meet for his day. To my five children,
each and every one, I leave the heritage of the second commandment.
They are heirs of grace, joint heirs of immortality, and I charge them as
with my dying breath that they keep unbroken the long entail of a God
fearing, God-loving, God-serving ancestry, and in their turn transmit the
blessings of the covenant to their children after them.
" My three sons and my two daughters I commit to the tender mer
cies of a covenant-keeping God, asking only for them that He will bring
them soul and body when He makes up His jewels, and thus render
them fully and forever blessed."

%n fperaoriara.

The following lines, pasted on a fly-leaf of her Bible, bearing date
November 3d, 1871 (the day of her mother's death), may fittingly close
this memorial :
"Gone home! Gone home! She lingers here no longer
A restless pilgrim, walking painfully,
With homesick longings daily growing stronger,
And yearning visions of the joys to be.
" Gone home! Gone home! Her earnest, active spirit,
Her very playfulness, her heart of love!
The heavenly mansion now she doth inherit
Which Christ made ready ere she went above.
" Gone home! Gone home! The door through which she vanished
Closed with a jar, and left us here alone.
We stand without, in tears, forlorn and banished,
Longing to follow where one loved has gone.
" Gone home! Gone home! O human-hearted Saviour
Give us a balm to soothe our heavy woe;
And, if thou wilt, in tender, pitying favor,
Hasten the time when we may rise and go."