Laura E. Richards, Maud Howe, Florence Howe Hall, Julia Ward Howe, 1819-1910, in two volumes, with portraits and other illustrations: volume 1

Among the people they met in the autumn of 1844 was Professor Fowler, the phrenologist. This gentleman examined Julia's head, and made the following pronunciamento:--

“You're a deep one! it takes a Yankee to find you out. The intellectual temperament predominates in your character. You will be a central character like Henry Clay and Silas Wright, and people will group themselves around you.”

Now Julia could not abide Professor Fowler. “Oh, yes!” she snapped out angrily. “They've always been my models!”

“The best things you do,” he went on, “will be done on the spur of the moment. You have enough love of order to enjoy it, but you will not take the trouble to produce it. You have more religion than morality. You have genius, but no music in you by nature.”

Fifty years later these words were fresh in her memory.

“I disliked Mr. Fowler extremely,” she said, “and believed nothing of what he said; nevertheless, most of his predictions were verified. I had at the time no leading in any of the directions he indicated. I had been much shut up in personal and family life; was a person rather of antipathies than sympathies. His remarks made no impression. Yet,” she added, “I always had a sense of relation to the public, but thought the connection would come through writing.”