It is for this reason, perhaps, that I never married, although educated and trained with the idea that the true sphere of woman is to be a wife and mother. Also, I was very sentimentally inclined towards men, to moonlight walks and to the exchange of friendly letters; but I always grew tired of it all in a very short time and decided that none of these attachments was the right one, proving that my desire for independence was innate. So, happy the man who got released from me and happy was I to remain free. Again, after arriving in New York, I might just as well have become a manufacturer, as I had begun to be, if I had become familiar with the English language. I was quite happy in that branch of work and was able to assist many a woman in various ways. But the impossibility of acquiring the language in that limited sphere prevented the enlargement of my knowledge and connections necessary in that branch of activity. Then later came, last but not least, the temptation to go as missionary to the Cherokee Indians. I have not a doubt that in that direction I could have developed my independence and have been extremely useful, had I not been influenced by people in whose judgment I had full confidence--a rare thing in young, impulsive, enthusiastic natures, to accept the advice of others. I was bridled and held in check, not by a clear vision but by influences which overpowered me as the magnet does the iron which it attracts. Also, do I consider it fair and right and not out of place to speak of the lecturers and teachers connected with the medical department of the Western Reserve College. At the time as well as in the following years, I often heard depreciatory remarks about our professors and their methods of instruction. There was no doubt that a very few of the students in attendance had a collegiate education superior to that which some of the professors might have had in their younger days, for instance, Dr. John J. Delamater, then over seventy years old, and Dr. J. B. Kirtland, not far from seventy, both of them the kindest of men, true philanthropists and men of a natural genius who had attained a high position among their fellow men.