"I was between three and four years of age when our mother died, and
my personal recollections of her are therefore but few. But the deep
interest and veneration that she inspired in all who knew her were
such that during all my childhood I was constantly hearing her spoken
of, and from one friend or another some incident or anecdote of her
life was constantly being impressed upon me.

"Mother was one of those strong, restful, yet widely sympathetic
natures in whom all around seemed to find comfort and repose. The
communion between her and my father was a peculiar one. It was an
intimacy throughout the whole range of their being. There was no human
mind in whose decisions he had greater confidence. Both intellectually
and morally he regarded her as the better and stronger portion of
himself, and I remember hearing him say that after her death his first
sensation was a sort of terror, like that of a child suddenly shut out
alone in the dark.

"In my own childhood only two incidents of my mother twinkle like rays
through the darkness. One was of our all running and dancing out
before her from the nursery to the sitting-room one Sabbath morning,
and her pleasant voice saying after us, 'Remember the Sabbath day to
keep it holy, children.'

"Another remembrance is this: mother was an enthusiastic
horticulturist in all the small ways that limited means allowed. Her
brother John in New York had just sent her a small parcel of fine
tulip-bulbs. I remember rummaging these out of an obscure corner of
the nursery one day when she was gone out, and being strongly seized
with the idea that they were good to eat, using all the little English
I then possessed to persuade my brothers that these were onions such