[Boston—Tuesday, 7 May 1867]

May 7th The days have been filled to the brim with various and rich experiences & I only have failed in power to make the most of them but a feeling of profound gratitude comes over me as I recall one by one the hours of exquisite happiness I have with spirits born for high thoughts and often for high deeds.

Sunday night we went to Aldrich’s house,—(Mrs Hawthorne calls it the Aldrich workbox) to meet Booth, at tea. Longfellow was to have been there but he told J. afterwards the printers were pressing him hard for a sonnet and he stayed at home to write it. The small waiter of six years of age, the small tea-table and the small couple entertained us much and the tea was sumptuous, befitting the inaugural festival but our chief interest centered in Booth who was never handsomer, never more truly Hamlet in appearance and although entirely without affectations, in action also. He never sets aside the sorrows of his life, they pursue him and set a crown of thorns upon him and will not let him forget—but he has learned to see God’s hand and to hear His voice. Oh God, give him strength in this hard world that he may not fall again but live on, heroic to the end strengthened by Thy strength.

Monday Evening Robert Collyer came with Mr Bartol to call. He preached Sunday night in the theatre but was feeling exhausted by the effort. He is one of Heaven’s noblemen though he has been a blacksmith in this world. Nothing could have given him so admirable a physical training for the profession which makes the greatest demands upon the constitution as the very life he was obliged to lead before he went to Chicago—now, however, he is at the head there in the influence which he exerts over a very large parish. He seemed deeply interested in what he saw of books and pictures about him here.

Today I have been to see the Catholic sisters who are starting a home for Fallen Women in Boston, alas! we have long needed such but only now do we begin—and through the Roman church too. I am grateful for the institution whoever may start it but I feel as if in this home of Protestantism it was a wrong and a disgrace that such things must be left to this effete and decaying authority. It shows that although the temporal authority of the Pope may decay, the organisation of the Church as a body contains a strong principle of life not the smallest feature of which is that it is a refuge for women and always ready to give them holy work adapted to their strength in which the sorrows of the world may be assuaged if not forgotten.

The green leaves are Springing and flowers are seen oftener. Mrs Osgood sent me a box ful of delicious May Flowers and damp moss all the way from Hollis Me. It was like a visit to the woods to open the box.


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