d resolved, on leaving Berlin, never to ask for aid, in order that I
might be able with perfect freedom to carry out my plans independently of
my family. How this was ever to be done, I did not yet see; though I had a
good opportunity to learn, from life and from the papers, what I had to
expect here. But this mode of instruction, though useful to one seeking to
become a philosopher, was very unsatisfactory to me. The chief thing that
I learned was, that I must acquire English before I could undertake any
thing. And this was the most difficult point to overcome. I am not a
linguist by nature: all that I learn of languages must be obtained by the
greatest perseverance and industry; and, for this, my business would not
allow me time.

Shortly after I had fairly established myself in the manufacturing
business, I received news from Berlin, that Sister Catherine had left the
Hospital Charite, and was intending to join me in America, in order to aid
me in carrying out my plan for the establishment of a hospital for women
in the New World. The parties interested in her had finally succeeded in
placing her in the wished-for position, thus disconnecting her from the
sisterhood. But, after my departure, the position became greatly modified
in rank, and inferior in character. Private reasons besides made it
disagreeable for her to remain there any longer; and in this moment she
remembered my friendship towards her, and in the unfortunate belief that
she shared with many others, that all that I designed to do I could do at
once, resolved to come to me, and offer her assistance. She joined us on
the 22d of August, and was not a little disappointed to find me in the
tassel instead of the medical line. The astonishment with which her
acquaintances in Berlin heard her announce her intention of going to seek
help from a person to whom she had been less than a friend, could not be
expressed in words; and she told me that the annoyance that they
manifested was really the chief stimulus that decided her to come at last.
She arrived without a cent. Having always found friends enough ready to
supply her with money, whenever she wished to establish a temporary
hospital, it had never occurred to her that she should need any for
private use, beyond just enough to furnish the simple blue merino dress of
the sisterhood, which had often been provided for her by the Kaiserswerth
Institute. But here she was; and she very soon learned to understand th