Part 18 (2/2)

[9] Miss Bird is known to the world by her remarkable books of travel in japan and elsewhere

[10] An account of the Volunteer Review in Hyde Park is given in Sir Theodore Martin's admirable Life of the Prince Consort, Vol V, pp

105-6, A to a toast the sa, speaks of it as ”a scene which will never fade froood fortune to be present”

[11] It is hardly possible to allude to the great affliction of this illustrious lady without thinking also of the persistent acts of wouish and suspense of the past two months, she has tried toand now sainted President Certainly, the whole case is unique in the history of the world By this most tender and Christ-like sympathy, she has endeared herself in a wonderful manner to the heart of the American people God bless Queen Victoria! they say with one voice--_New York, September_ 24, 1881

[12] The eldest son of her brother-in-law, Mr S S Prentiss, a youth of rare promise, and who had especially endeared himself to his Aunt Abby He died of fever at Tallaho the war

CHAPTER VII

THE STRUGGLE WITH ILL-HEALTH

1861-1865

I

At Ho Ill-health The Summer of 1861 Death of Louisa Payson Hopkins Extracts from her Journal Summer of 1862 Letters Despondency

We come now to a new phase of Mrs Prentiss' experience as a pastor's wife Before her husband resigned his New York charge, during the winter of 1857-8, the question of holding a service in the upper part of the city, with the view to another congregation, was earnestly discussed in the session and a then came of it Soon after his return from Europe, however, the project was revived, and resulted at length in the forreat civil hich was then raging, the undertaking encountered difficulties so for but extraordinary zeal, liberality, and wise counsel on the part of his friends and the friends of the moveregation held service in as then called Dodworth's Studio Building at the corner of Fifth avenue and Twenty-sixth street, but in 1864 it entered the chapel on Thirty-fifth street, and in 1865 occupied the stately edifice on Park avenue In the ements connected with this work, Mrs Prentiss shared with her husband; and, when finally croith the happiest success, it owed perhaps as much to her as to him This brief statement seems needful in order to define and render clear her position, as a pastor's wife, during the next twelve years

After spending some weeks in Newark and Portland, she found herself once more in New York in a home of her own and surrounded by friends, both old and new The records of the following four or five years are sonificance The ith its terrible excitement and anxieties, absorbed allabout anything else

Domestic and personal interests were entirely overshadowed by the one supreme interest of the hour--that of the imperiled National life It was for Mrs Prentiss a period also of almost continuous ill-health The sleeplessness from which she had already suffered so ravated by other ailer children, so underth, that life became at times a heavy burden She felt often that her days of usefulness were past But the Master had yet a great work for her to do, and--

In ways various, Or,her for it during these years of bodily infir

The summer of 1861 was passed at Newport In a letter to Mrs Smith, dated July 28th, she writes:

We find the Cliff House delightful, within a few minutes' walk of the sea, which we have in full view from one of our s And we have no lack of society, for the Bancrofts, Miss Aspinwall and her sister, as well as the Skinners, are very friendly But I aivesone child or another about, or giving so so up papa, who is miserable, and his oration untouched There, don't mind me; it's at the end of a churchless Sunday, and I dare say I am ”only peevis',” as the little boy said

But in a feeeks the children ell again and her own health so , which she ”enjoyed tremendously,” and early in the fall the whole fareatly refreshed by the summer's rest

On the 24th of January, 1862, her sister, Mrs Hopkins, died This event touched her deeply She hurried off to Williamstohence she wrote to her husband, as unable to accoet here till half-past nine last night, and that in an open sleigh from North Adams, you would not have let me come But so far I am none the worse for it; and, when I ca here all alone and so forlorn in their unaccustoh that a kind Providence had allowed ratification to them all, especially to the Professor, and even er of being blocked up by another snow-storm, I shall probably think it best to return by another route, which they all say is the best I hope you and my precious children keep well

No picture of Mrs Prentiss' life would be complete, in which her sister's influence was not distinctly visible To this influence she owed the best part of her earlier intellectual training; and it did much to mould her whole character Mrs Hopkins was one of the ifted, women of her day; and had not ill-health early disabled her for literary labors, shena points of resee; the same early intellectual bloom; the same rare union of feth and breadth of understanding; the same taste for the beautiful in poetry, in art, and in nature, joined to siht in books of devotion and in books of theology; and the same varied erudition Only one of theood Latin and Greek scholars; and both were familiar with Italian, Spanish, French, and Gere's admiration and reverence for her father, Mrs Hopkins was in full sympathy with her

She lacked, indeed, that poetic fancy which belonged to the author of ”Phantasmion;” nor did she possess her mental self-poise and firanization and certain features of countenance, they were singularly alike And they both died in the fiftieth year of their age

Louisa Payson was born at Portland, February 24, 1812 Even as a child she was the object of tender interest to her father on account of her remarkable intellectual proe her in learning to study and to think The impression he made upon her may be seen in the popular little voluely of conversations with him, written out from memory after his death She was then in her sixteenth year The records of the next eight years, which were re; but a sort of literary journal, kept by her between 1835 and 1840, shows so of herShe enty-three years old when the journal opens Here are a few extracts fro I passed in company with Mr Dana [1] I conversed with him only for a few moments about Mr Alcott's school, and had not time to ask one of the ten thousand questions I wished to ask I have been trying to analyse the feeling I have for e, Wordsworth and Dana, for example I can understand why I feel for them unbounded admiration, reverence and affection, but I hardly knohy there should be so led with these eeniuswith one who possessed it