This Convention came near being her last. Tonsillitis was epidemic in the city; the halls were draughty; at one meeting a woman with a severe cold, a stranger, kissed her effusively. She took the infection, was prostrated for some days, and made the return journey while still too weak to travel. Florence, who was with her, protested in vain. "I would go," she said, "if the hearse was at the door!" A serious illness followed on her return. A month and more passed before she began to regain strength and spirits.[148]
"March 31. Had a happy lighting up when I lay down for afternoon rest. Felt the immensity of God's goodness and took heart for the future."
In April she records "a delightful visit from Robert Collyer, accompanied by Annie Fields. I asked him: 'Robert, what is religion?' He replied, 'To love God with all one's heart, Christ helping us.' He began his prayer last Sunday thus: 'Our Father who art in heaven, on earth, and in hell!'"
On April 13, she was "out for the first time since February 14, when I returned sick from Baltimore...."
Another week and she was at her church, for the first time since January 18.
It had been a long and weary time, yet one remembers not so much the suffering and confinement as the gayety of it. There was a sigh for the Journal, but for the family, and the faithful nurse,—
"Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathéd smiles."
This nurse was known to others as Lucy Voshell, but her patient promptly named her "Wollapuk." She was as merry as she was skillful, and the two made much fun together. Even when the patient could not speak, she could twinkle. As strength gradually returned, the ministrations of Wollapuk became positively scenes of revelry; and the anxious guardian below, warding off would-be interviewers or suppliants, might be embarrassed to hear peals of laughter ringing down the stair.
Early in May she has "young J. W. Hurlburt to dine; a pleasant young playwright, grandson to General Hurlburt of the Civil War...."
"I had lent my play of 'Hippolytus' to young Hurlburt to read. He brought it back yesterday with so much praise of parts of it as to revive the pang which I felt when, Charlotte Cushman and Edwin Booth having promised to fill the principal parts, the manager's wife suddenly refused to fill her part, and the whole fell through. This with much other of my best literary work has remained a dead letter on my own shelves. I am glad as well as sad to feel that it deserved better treatment."
She had a wheel-chair, and on pleasant days it was her delight to be wheeled through the Public Garden, now in full May beauty, to see the flowers and the children. She was able to attend several meetings, and to write several papers.
"May 18. Have read part of the recital of Anna Ticknor's achievement in her society to encourage studies at home. Her work is really heroic. I wish that I had better understood it. Still I did admire it a great deal, but had little idea of the great benevolence and sympathy developed in her work, which was a godsend to thousands of women."
"May 26. My dear son arrived in the evening to celebrate my birthday. He seems well and happy. I was thankful to see him. Flowers kept arriving all day."
"May 27. Attended church and carried some of my birthday flowers for the pulpit.... In the afternoon a beautiful reception which the rain kept from being the over-crowd which I had rather feared. Colonel Higginson came and gave me some lovely verses written for the occasion. William R. Thayer did likewise. Arthur Upson had already sent me some. I enjoyed it all very much; dined downstairs with my dear family, who drank my health standing. H. M. H., being called upon for a word, said, 'The dear old girl!' and could not have said better. I thanked and blessed them all. We passed the evening together. The Greeks of Boston sent splendid red roses and ribbons with motto. The Italians sent flowers."
After this she wrote an essay on "How to Keep Young," in which she says:—
"Try to keep in touch with the best spirits of your time, with those who are raising instead of lowering the tone of the atmosphere in which they live.
"Avoid the companionship of those who deride sacred things and are inclined to ignore the limits of refinement and good taste.
"Remember that ignoble amusements react upon character.
"Never forget that we grow like to that we contemplate.
"Keep it always in mind that it must be through our own efforts that our progress through life shall bring with it the fulfilment of the best promise of our youth."
"July 2. Oak Glen. Nurse Voshell, nicknamed by me Wollapuk, left this morning. I have become so dependent upon her that I shall miss her very much. I have been impatient of having her so long, but now see how very helpful she has been to me.
"I began to write a retrospect of my essay on 'Distinctions between Philosophy and Religion,' but feel that this will be of little value. Oh! that I had taken Dr. Hedge's advice and published these papers soon after they were written. As it is I have lost two of the best of them, viz.: this one just mentioned and 'Moral Triangulation of the Third Party,' in obligations and contrasts."
In these days she met with a grave loss in the death of Michael Anagnos.
"I am deeply grieved at his death, which is a real loss to me and my family, and almost irreparable to the Institution which he has served nobly with entire devotion and disinterest and has enriched by his great and constant efforts. He built three Kindergartens for the blind. God rest his soul!
"I pray that my great pain at the death of my son-in-law may inspire me to help the blind as I never have helped them!"
"My strength has failed so much of late that my strong love of life begins to waver. I should be glad to live to print some of my studies in Philosophy, and to have some of my musical compositions taken down by dictation."
"August 31.... The last day of a summer which brought a serious grief in the death of Michael Anagnos, who, ever since my visit to Greece in 1867, has been an important factor in my life. I am much troubled in the effort to compose a poem to be read at the memorial services to be held for him in late October...."
A photograph taken at this time shows her sitting in her hooded chair on the piazza, her Greek books and her canary beside her, a serene and lovely picture. It was so she used to sit every morning. First she read her Testament, and a prayer of James Martineau, or some other good saint; this she called "taking the altitude"; then she turned to her Æschylus or Aristotle.
Before thus settling down, there would be a walk on the piazza, or along the highway. Sheltered by a broad hat, the friend of many years, wrapped in the "passionate pilgrim," as she named a certain ancient purple cloak, leaning on her ebony stick—who that passed that way has not seen her? Bits of her talk, as we strolled together, come back to us; as when the clouds parted suddenly at the close of a gray day, then shutting in again. "Oh!" she cried, "it is like being engaged to the man you love, for five minutes!"
"September 16.... I had had much hesitation about undertaking to speak at Shiloh Baptist Church [colored] this afternoon; but it came to me as something which I ought to do, and so I gave the promise, and, with some studying, wrote the sermon. The result fully justified the effort. I spoke to a large and very attentive congregation, in which a number of white outsiders were mingled in with the people of the church.... Mrs. Jeter sang my 'Battle Hymn,' the congregation joining in the 'Glory Hallelujah.' I then read my screed, which was heard with profound attention, one and another crying out at intervals, 'Amen!' and 'Glory be to God!'... I was very thankful for the good issue of what had seemed an almost wild undertaking at eighty-seven years of age."