THE LAST YEARS 385 



they will come later. They have been making and I 

 have been renewing acquaintance with Miss Edge- 

 worth, — Simple Susan, Lazy Lawrence, Barring 

 Out, and all the rest of it. It is really pleasant to re- 

 turn to these old friends. For my own reading, I have 

 been deeply interested in Morse's Life of Holmes. 

 Toward the end of his days one sees that he, too, 

 came face to face with the great mystery. Dying do 

 we leave this life a *' futile failure" and return to 

 unconsciousness, or do we meet another life full of 

 infinite possibilities? 



February 11. — A black woman, or rather mulatto, 

 came to see me yesterday about a negro school in 

 Alabama. When we had finished about the school, she 

 said, "You have been kind to me; I wonder if I could 

 give you pleasure by singing for you the songs of my 

 people." Of course I was glad. She went to the piano 

 and touching a few chords began to sing. I have 

 rarely been more moved. It was not dramatic, still 

 less melodramatic. It was to the last degree genuine 

 and unconscious. The first word or line, "Were you 

 there when He was crucified .f^" was overwhelming. 

 Not from its pathos — not from any attempt to 

 make it touching, — but it was a person in the very 

 time asking the question of another who might have 

 been there. I can never forget it. It was as if I might 

 have been present myself. 



April 21^.. — This has been the most heavenly Sun- 

 day. We were all at Luly Dresel's to hear a trio 

 written by her father when he was about twenty and 

 looked upon by Mendelssohn and Liszt and Schubert 



