of wife and mother in a well-ordered and eminently hospitable
household wherein she was dearly loved. She was without appetite
for luxury or display or praise or influence, with entire
indifference to triffles. . . . As she advanced in life her
personal beauty, not remarked in youth, drew the notice of all."

There could have been no nobler, saner influence for an intellectual
boy than the companionship of this unusual woman, and if we are
to begin at the beginning of Wellesley's story, we must begin with
Mrs. Ripley, for Mr. Durant often said that she had great influence
in inclining his mind in later life to the higher education of women.

From Waltham the young man went in 1837 to Harvard, where we hear
of him as "not specially studious, and possessing refined and
luxurious tastes which interfered somewhat with his pursuit of
the regular studies of the college." But evidently he was no
ordinary idler, for he haunted the Harvard Library, and we know
that all his life he was a lover of books. In 1841 he was graduated
from Harvard, and went home to Lowell to read law in his father's
office, where Benjamin F. Butler was at that time a partner.
The dilettante attitude which characterized his college years is
now no longer in evidence. He writes to a friend, "I shall study
law for the present to oblige father; he is in some trouble, and
I wish to make him as happy as possible. The future course of
my life is undetermined, except that all shall yield to holy poetry.
Indeed it is a sacred duty. I have begun studying law; don't be
afraid, however, that I intend to give up poetry. I shall always
be a worshiper of that divinity, and l hope in a few years to be
able to give up everything and be a priest in her temple." After
a year he writes, "I have not written any poetry this whole summer.