orget the physician in
the author) he took strong views of heredity. As a worker among our
destitute children, I considered environment the greater factor of the
two, and spoke of children of the most worth less parents who had
turned out well when placed early in respectable and kindly homes.
Before I left, the author presented me with an autograph copy of one of
his books--a much-prized gift. He was reading Cotton Mather's
"Memorabilia," not for theology, but for gossip. It was the only
chronicle of the small beer of current events in the days of the witch
persecutions, and the expulsion of the Quakers, Baptists, and other
schismatics. I have often felt proud that of all the famous men I have
mentioned in this connection there was only one not a Unitarian, and
that was Whittier, the Quaker poet of abolition; and his theology was
of the mildest.

Another notable man with whom I had three hours' talk was Charles
Dudley Warner, the humorous writer. I am not partial to American
humorists generally, but the delicate and subtle humour of Dudley
Warner I always appreciated. In our talk I saw his serious side, for he
was keen on introducing the indeterminate sentence into his own State,
on the lines of the Elmira and Concord Reformatories. He told me that
he never talked in train: but during the three hours' journey to New
York neither of us opened the books with which we had provided
ourselves, and we each talked of our separate interests, and enjoyed
the talk right through. Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe I saw, but her
memory was completely gone. With Julia Ward Howe, the writer of "The
Battle Hymn of the Republic" I spent a happy time. She had been the
President of the New England Women's Club for 25 years, and was a
charming and interesting woman. I was said to be very like her, and,
indeed was often accosted by her name; but I think probably the reason
was partly my cap, for Howe always wears one, and few other American
ladies do. Whenever I was with her I was haunted by the beautiful lines
from the closing verse of the "Battle Hymn"--

In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born, across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me;
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

At her house I met many distinguished women. Mrs. J. F. Fields, the
widow of the well-known author-publisher; Madame Blaine Bentzam, a
writer for French reviews; Miss Sarah