ot's
depreciating comparison of Jesus with Socrates,--after following
unfoldings of this wonderful panorama, I must say that the earliest view
is that which I hold to most, that, namely, of the heavenly Being whose
presence was beneficence, whose word was judgment, whose brief career on
earth ended in a sacrifice, whose purity and pathos have had much to do
with the redemption of the human race from barbarism and the rule of the
animal passions.

During the first score of years of my married life, I resided for the
most part at South Boston. This remoteness from city life insured to me
a good deal of quiet leisure, much of which I devoted to my favorite
pursuits. It was in these days that I turned to my almost forgotten
Latin, and read the "Aeneid" and the histories of Livy and Tacitus. At a
later date my brother gave me Orelli's edition of Horace, and I soon
came to delight much in that quasi-Hellenic Roman. I remember especially
the odes which my brother pointed out to me as his favorites. These
were: "Maecenas atavis edite regibus;" "Quis desiderio sit pudor aut
modus;" "O fons Bandusiae;" and, above all, "Exegi monumentum aere
perennius."

With no pretensions to correct scholarship, I yet enjoyed these Latin
studies quite intensely. They were so much in my mind that, when we sat
down to our two o'clock dinner, my husband would sometimes ask: "Have
you got those elephants over the river yet?" alluding to Hannibal and
the Punic war.

Prior to these Latin studies, I read a good deal in Swedenborg, and was
much fascinated by his theories of spiritual life. I remember "Heaven
and Hell," "Divine Love and Wisdom," and "Conjugal Love" as the writings
which interested me most; but the cumbrous symbolism of his Bible
interpretation finally shut my mind against further entertainment of so
fanciful a guest. Hegel was for some time my study among the German
philosophers. After some severe struggling with his extraordinary
diction, I became convinced that the obscurity of his style was
intentional, and left him in some indignation. The deep things of
philosophy are difficult enough when treated by one who desires to make
them clear. Where the intention is rather to mask than to unfold the
meaning which is in the master's mind, interpretation is difficult and
hazardous. Hegel's own saying about his lectures is well known: "One
only of my pupils understood me, and he misunderstood me."

George Bancroft, the historian, spoke of