to some slumbering genius in herself for art, science, or
literature, with which to gild the sunset of her life. Longfellow's
beautiful poem, 'Morituri Salutamus,' written for a similar
occasion to this, is full of hope and promise for all of us. He
says:

"'Something remains for us to do or dare;
Even the oldest tree some fruit may bear.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than four-score years.
And Theophrastus, at three-score and ten,
Had but begun his Characters of Men;
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past.
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the Arctic regions of our lives,
Where little else than life itself survives.
For age is opportunity no less
Than youth itself, though in another dress,
And as the evening twilight fades away
The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.'"

On December 21, 1892, we celebrated, for the first time, "Foremothers'
Day." Men had celebrated "Forefathers' Day" for many years, but as women
were never invited to join in their festivities, Mrs. Devereux Blake
introduced the custom of women having a dinner in celebration of that
day. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker spent two days with me, and together
we attended the feast and made speeches. This custom is now annually
observed, and gentlemen sit in the gallery just as ladies had done on
similar occasions.

My son Theodore arrived from France in April, 1893, to attend the
Chicago Exposition, and spent most of the summer with me at Glen Cove,
Long Island, where my son Gerrit and his wife were domiciled. Here we
read Captain Charles King's stories of life at military posts, Sanborn's
"Biography of Bronson Alcott," and Lecky's "History of Rationalism."

Here I visited Charles A. Dana, the Nestor of journalism, and his
charming family. He lived on a beautiful island near Glen Cove. His
refined, artistic taste, shown in his city residence in paintings,
statuary, and rare bric-a-brac, collected in his frequent travels in the
Old World, displayed itself in his island home in the arrangement of an
endless variety of trees, shrubs, and flowe