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and third generations, staying at home herself to amuse and care for the fourth.
On the last day of August she records once more her sorrow at the departure of the summer.
She adds, “God grant me to be prepared to live or die, as He shall decree.
It is best, I think, to anticipate life, and to cultivate forethought. ... I think it may have been to-day that I read the last pages of Martineau's ‘Seat of Authority in Religion,’ an extremely valuable book, yet a painful one to read, so entirely does it do away with the old-time divinity of the dear Christ.
But it leaves Him the divinity of character — no theory or discovery can take that away.”
Late September brought an occasion to which she had looked forward with mingled pleasure and dread; the celebration of the Hudson-Fulton Centennial in New York.
She had been asked for a poem, and had taken great pains with it, writing and re-writing it, hammering and polishing.
She thought it finished in July, yet two days before the celebration she was still re-touching it.
“I have been much dissatisfied with my Fulton poem.
Lying down to rest this afternoon, instead of sleep, of which I felt no need, I began to try for some new lines which should waken it up a little, and think that I succeeded.
I had brought no manuscript paper, so had to scrawl my amendments on Sanborn's old long envelope.”
Later in the day two more lines came to her, and again two the day after.
Finally, on the morning of the day itself, on awakening, she cried out,--
Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York. 1916.
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