CHANGED CONDITIONS 175 
pleasant life. It is delightful to hear and to think 
of happy people. ...I have to remind myself how 
intensely happy I have been, and then the hope 
comes that what has been will be. Iam glad of one 
thing, —I knew how happy I was—every day and 
hour had its full value, and looking back I have a 
sense of possession that nothing can take from me. 
What I have had is mine. Alex keeps pretty well thus 
far but will go off somewhere in February, I think. 
I miss him desperately when he goes, for Alex is to 
me a very companionable man. He tells me a great 
deal of his scientific life and work, of his plans for 
the Museum, etc., and that keeps me still a little 
in the same intellectual atmosphere to which I am 
accustomed. We dine at six — coffee after; then I 
read to the boys for an hour or more; before nine 
they are in bed, and then Alex and I have a cup 
of tea — destructive and dangerous to the nerves, 
but very pleasant, — and then is our time for talk, 
and if Alex is writing anything, he often reads it to 
me, and we discuss it together. All this is a real 
source of happiness, and you must not think I do 
not appreciate it. I do, and constantly think how 
blessed I am in my children and grandchildren. 
But with all his activity — and Alex’s life is crowded 
with work from morning to night —it is such a 
broken life. You see it in his look whenever his face 
is quiet and thoughtful — at least, I do, knowing his 
expression so well. The children are all well — Ro- 
dolphe enchanting and developing in intelligence 
wonderfully. 
