No, for the purification of the nation has not yet been wrought out; the scourge is needed yet; the gulf yet yawns for that which is dearest in all the land, and the war will not cease until it is closed. Not to a proud, self-confident people will the victory be given, but to the humble, the trustful, the nation that stays itself upon God, and lives only for the highest principles, and the highest love.
August 10. This week has been a more remarkable one than any in my life, I believe, in the way of seeing people I have heard of, and had some little curiosity about. Last Thursday was spent at Andover, and one of the golden days it was. The day itself was one of shine and shadow just rightly blended; and the place, the well-known Hill of the students, was in its glory. After sitting awhile in church, where the learned Professors, Park, Phelps, and Stowe, sat in state (I wonder if Professors dread anniversaries and conspicuous positions as we boarding-school teachers do!) we went up the hill to accept an invitation to lunch with Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. It was beautiful as a page from one of her own story books.
Mrs. Stowe herself I liked, and her house and garden were just such as an authoress like her ought to have. It all had what I imagine to be an English look, the old stone house, with its wild vines and trees brought into shape in picturesque walks, and its cool refreshment-room looking off over the river, the city, and the far hills, to the mountains; the arrangement of the table, too, showing so much of the poetess. I could not have called upon Mrs. Stowe formally; as it was, nothing could have been much pleasanter, of that kind.
Then before I left I called upon some old friends; a call which finished the day very delightfully; for there, besides the cordiality of really well-bred people, I saw one of the sweetest specimens of girlhood that can be shown in New England, I fancy. Beauty does not often fascinate me, in its common acceptation; but where there is soul in a young, sweet face--modesty and intelligence that greet you like the fragrance of a rosebud before it is well opened--it is so rare a thing in these “Young America” days that it makes me a little extravagant in admiration, perhaps.