Lydia Maria Child, Isaac T. Hopper: a true life

‘ [439] I have pored over it so much, that I have got it by heart. Friend Hopper, you first saw me in prison and visited me. You followed me to the Asylum. You did not forsake me. You have changed a bed of straw to a bed of down. May Heaven bless and reward you for it. No tongue can express the gratitude I feel. Many are the hearts you have made glad. Suppose all you have dragged out of one place and another were to stand before you at once! I think you would have more than you could shake hands with in a month; and I know you would shake hands with them all.’

For a few months, she behaved in a very satisfactory manner, though occasionally unsettled and depressed. She wrote that the worthy woman with whom she lived was “both mother and friend to her.” But the country was gloomy in the winter, and the spirit of unrest took possession of her. She went to Philadelphia and plunged into scenes of vice for a week or two; but she quickly repented, and was rescued by her friends. I have seldom seen Friend Hopper so deeply pained as he was by this retrograde step in one whom he had rejoiced over, ‘as a brand plucked from the burning.’ After awhile, he addressed a letter to her, in which he says: ‘I should have written to thee before, but I have been at a loss what to say. I have cared for thee, as if thou hadst been my own child. Little did I think thou wouldst ’