May 31st, the date runs, and I know I never answered that letter, for I never in my life could have answered a letter like that, but still more, I never even tried to. Discouraged at the onset and gave up the encounter. A glimpse at the topics it handled were so far beyond any reply from the “likes o’ me.” “Great services unnoticed”—“Future remembrances when others are forgotten”—“To be told in story and sung in other lands”—poor little me who has never seen the present Ruler of her own country! “Then let us hope, and although you may never escort me over the Mexican line, I have never lost sight of the darkness of the day when I proposed that you should.” If it were not my firm belief in an overruling Providence. A. LINCOLN. Excerpts from a letter under date of November 21, 1910: A GREATER POWER AND A WISER MIND “How well I remember when I once asked you to escort me over! and I never can understand _why_ I failed to go; a Greater Power and a Wiser Mind were guiding me, no doubt——” To God my life was an open page, He knew what I would be; He knew how the tyrant passions rage, How wind swept was all my anchorage, And why I would drift to sea. He who hath a thousand friends hath none to spare. ALI BEN ABOU TALEB. I am never weary when meeting my friends. CLARA BARTON. Clara Barton’s intellect was never keener, clearer nor more alert than it is now (1911). STEPHEN E. BARTON. The report which went out that I was ill set the country, nay the world, by the ears and the letters came pouring in by the score, yes, and more. CLARA BARTON. Such beautiful letters! I have read them through tears. CLARA BARTON. WRITE NONE—SEE ONLY THOSE I MUST[12] Oxford, Sept. 21, 1911. Prof. Young, My Dear friend: I am trying to speak to your letter of yesterday, myself, but it is from a very sick bed. I write none—see only those I must. I _must see you_. Come and see me though only a week. I had hoped to see you under better conditions. I replied to your dispatch. Come when you will; all times are alike to me. Yours sincerely and always, (Signed) CLARA BARTON. Footnote 12: Her friends who were with her through her last illness say the letter of which the above is a copy is the last letter written by Clara Barton. I did not err: there does a sable cloud Turn forth her silver lining on the night.