PERSONAL HISTORY 177 



felt the impulse of the high ideals of the sober, 

 industrious New Englander. 



Since the settlement of Lancaster our national 

 history has been the most inspiring and luminous 

 in all human experience, and this town has not 

 failed to furnish its full quota of names of those 

 who in peace and in war have stood high in the 

 annals of the commonwealth and the nation.* 

 This is also true in the world of science and of 

 letters, t Only a few of the great mass of man- 

 kind stand above the others and impress one with 

 the sense of their individuality. The same is true 

 of cities and towns, and when Athens, Edinburgh 

 or Concord is named, there is presented a dis- 

 tinct picture of life with a quality of its own, like 

 a face of Van Dyck, or statue of Phidias. The 

 town of Lancaster, Massachusetts, by general 

 consent has such an individuality. A typical 

 New England home in this beautiful town 

 was the Burbank homestead — the large, square 

 brick house standing well back from the street 

 beneath the swaying branches of a great elm tree. 

 It was a sort of rendezvous for ministers, lec- 

 turers, and teachers, and was charged with intel- 

 lectual activity. Into this home on the seventh 



* History of L.ancaster, by Abijal P. Marvin, published by the 

 town in 1879. 



f A Bibliography of Lancastriana, by Henry S. Nourse, pub- 

 lished in 1901, compiled for the Public Library. 



