My beloved Mother was a remarkable woman and to her I owe far 

 more than I can express. Of unusual intellectual capacity, she was 

 especially wonderful for her sustained powers of tireless labour, whether 

 with brain or hands. Self-forgetting, self-sacrificing in a most excep- 

 tional degree, she gave up everything for her children. She was widely 

 read, a good talker and excellent company, though saddened by her 

 early widowhood. Because of her shyness, few people knew her at all 

 well, but those who did admired and loved her. Three of my uncles 

 and both of my aunts were really brilliant and witty people and were 

 extremely popular in the community, so that the family into which my 

 Father's death transplanted me afforded a most stimulating atmosphere 

 for a child's development. 



From January 1862 to July 1863, we lived with my Mother's widowed 

 brother, Caspar Wistar Hodge, who was professor of Greek and New 

 Testament Literature in the Seminary. Of those eighteen months, I 

 cherish a great many recollections, but could hardly give a connected 

 narrative, even were it worth while to do so. One of my most vivid 

 recollections of that period was the military funeral of General George 

 Dashiell Bayard, whose obelisk with its crossed sabres is still one of the 

 most conspicuous monuments in the Princeton cemetery. General 

 Bayard, a distant cousin, was killed at the battle of Fredericksburg in 

 December 1862 and brought to Princeton for burial. His body lay in 

 state in what is now Ivy Hall and was escorted to the cemetery by 

 infantry and cavalry, to my childish eyes a very large detachment. The 

 volleys over the grave were fired by infantrymen in long, blue over- 

 coats and high hats of black felt. The housemaid took me to see the 

 spectacle and my Mother was left alone in the house, till my Grand- 

 mother came and made her attend the funeral. This, perhaps, saved 

 her life, for the house was robbed that afternoon and nearly all my 

 uncle's silver taken, including a much valued eighteenth century bowl 

 which had been buried during the Revolution to save it from maraud- 

 ing Red Coats, when Lord Cornwallis's troops occupied Princeton and 

 Morven was taken for his headquarters. 



It is really surprising how vividly the events of that day, more than 

 seventy-five years ago, are present to my memory; the frightened house- 

 maid's breathless announcement that the silver was gone, the search 

 through the house and in the cellar, the finding of the sugar bowl, minus 

 its cover, hidden in a closet, with the burglar's fingerprints in the soft 

 sugar, and the disappearance of my oldest brother's best trousers. In 

 nameless terror I clung to my Mother's skirts. Another crime, which 



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