It was while fully absorbed in thoughts and purposes like these, that, in
the autumn of 1856, I first saw Marie Zakrzewska.[1] During a short visit
to Boston (for she was then resident in New York), a friend brought her
before a physiological institute, and she addressed its members.

She spoke to them of her experience in the hospital at Berlin, and showed
that the most sinning, suffering woman never passed beyond the reach of a
woman's sympathy and help. She had not, at that time, thoroughly mastered
the English language; though it was quite evident that she was fluent,
even to eloquence, in German. Now and then, a word failed her; and, with a
sort of indignant contempt at the emergency, she forced unaccustomed words
to do her service, with an adroitness and determination that I never saw
equalled. I got from it a new revelation of the power of the English
language. She illustrated her noble and nervous thoughts with incidents
from her own experience one of which was told in a manner which impressed
it for ever on my consciousness.

"Soon after I entered the hospital," said Marie, "the nurse called me to a
ward where sixteen of the most forlorn objects had begun to fight with
each other. The inspector and the young physicians had been called to
them, but dared not enter the _mêlée_. When I arrived, pillows, chairs,
foot-stools and vessels had deserted their usual places; and one stout
little woman, with rolling eyes and tangled hair, lifted a vessel of
slops, which she threatened to throw all over me, as she exclaimed, 'Don't
dare to come here, you green young thing!'

"I went quietly towards her, saying gently, 'Be ashamed, my dear woman, of
your fury.'

"Her hands dropped. Seizing me by the shoulder she exclaimed, 'You don't