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?” 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 24. — 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 
