Memories and Anecdotes | Page 3

after I had given the
whole series from Chaucer to Burns, he took them to Appleton &
Company, the New York publishers, who were relatives of his, and
surprised me by having them printed.
I give an unasked-for opinion by John G. Whittier:
I spent a pleasant hour last evening over the charming little volume,
Home Pictures of English Poets, which thou wast kind enough to send
me, and which I hope is having a wide circulation as it deserves. Its
analysis of character and estimate of literary merit strike me as in the
main correct. Its racy, colloquial style, enlivened by anecdote and
citation, makes it anything but a dull book. It seems to me admirably
adapted to supply a want in hearth and home.
I lectured next in various towns in New Hampshire and Vermont; as St.
Johnsbury, where I was invited by Governor Fairbanks; Bath, New
Hampshire, asked by Mrs. Johnson, a well-known writer on flowers
and horticulture, a very entertaining woman. At one town in Vermont I
lectured at the large academy there--not much opportunity for rest in
such a building. My room was just off the music room where duets
were being executed, and a little further on girls were taking singing
lessons, while a noisy little clock-ette on my bureau zigzagged out the
rapid ticks. At the evening meal I was expected to be agreeable, also
after the lecture to meet and entertain a few friends. When I at last
retired that blatant clock made me so nervous that I placed it at first in
the bureau drawer, where it sounded if possible louder than ever. Then

I rose and put it way back in a closet; no hope; at last I partially dressed
and carried it the full length of the long hall, and laid it down to sleep
on its side. And I think that depressed it. In the morning, a hasty
breakfast, because a dozen or more girls were waiting at the door to ask
me to write a "tasty sentiment" before I left, in their autograph albums,
with my autograph of course, and "something of your own preferred,
but at any rate characteristic."
My trips to those various towns taught me to be more humble, and to
admire the women I met, discovering how seriously they had studied,
and how they made use of every opportunity. I remember Somersworth,
New Hampshire, and Burlington, Vermont. I lectured twice at the
Insane Asylum at Concord, New Hampshire, invited by Dr. Bancroft.
After giving my "newspaper wits" a former governor of Vermont came
up to shake hands with me, saying frankly, "Miss Sanborn, your lecture
was just about right for us lunatics." A former resident of Hanover, in a
closed cell, greeted me the next morning as I passed, with a torrent of
abuse, profanity, and obscenity. She too evidently disliked my lecture.
Had an audience of lunatics also at the McLean Insane Asylum, Dr.
Coles, Superintendent.
I think I was the first woman ever invited to make an address to farmers
on farming. I spoke at Tilton, New Hampshire, to more than three
hundred men about woman's day on the farm. Insinuated that women
need a few days off the farm. Said a good many other things that were
not applauded. Farmers seemed to know nothing of the advantages of
co-operation, and that they were as much slaves (to the middlemen) as
ever were the negroes in the South. They even tried to escape from me
at the noise of a dog-fight outside. I offered to provide a large room for
social meetings, to stock it with books of the day, and to send them a
lot of magazines and other reading. Not one ever made the slightest
response. Now they have all and more than I suggested.
When but seventeen, I was sent for to watch with Professor Shurtleff,
really a dying man, and left all alone with him in the lower part of the
house; he begged about 2 A.M. to be taken up and placed in a
rocking-chair near the little open fire. The light was dim and the effect

was very weird. His wig hung on one bedpost, he had lost one eye, and
the patch worn over the empty eye socket had been left on the bureau.
My anxiety was great lest he should slip from the chair and tip into the
fire. I note this to mark the great change since that time. Neighbours are
not now expected to care for the sick and dying, but trained nurses are
always sought, and most of them are noble heroines in their profession.
Once also I watched with a poor woman who was dying with cancer. I
tried it for two nights, but the remark of her sister, as I