The next day she writes: "Dreamed of dearest Sammy. Thought that he was in the bed, and that I was trying to nurse him in the dark as I have so often done. I thought that when his little lips had found my breast, something said in my ear, 'My life's life--the glory of the world.' Quoting from my lines on Mary Booth. This woke me with a sudden impression, _Thus Nature remembers_." She decided this spring to read some of her essays in Washington. There were various difficulties in the way, and she was uncertain of the outcome of the enterprise. She writes:-- "I leave Bordentown [the home of her sister Annie] with a resolute, not a sanguine heart. I have no one to stand for me there, Sumner against me, Channing almost unknown to me, everyone else indifferent. I go in obedience to a deep and strong impulse which I do not understand nor explain, but whose bidding I cannot neglect. The satisfaction of having at last obeyed this interior guide is all that keeps me up, for no one, so far as I know, altogether approves of my going." Spite of these doubts and fears, the enterprise was successful. Perhaps people were glad to shut their ears for a moment to the sound of cannon and the crying of "Latest news from the front!" and listen to the quiet words of philosophic thought and suggestion. Side by side with work, as usual, went play. In January she records the first meeting of the new club, the "Ladies' Social," at the home of Mrs. Josiah Quincy. This club of clever people, familiarly known as the "Brain Club," was for many years one of her great pleasures. Mrs. Quincy was its first president. It may have been at this meeting that our mother, being asked to present in a few words the nature and object of the club, addressed the company as follows: "Ladies and Gentlemen; this club has been formed for the purpose of carrying on"--she paused, and began to twinkle--"for the purpose of _carrying on_!" She describes briefly a meeting of the club at 13 Chestnut Street:-- "Entertained my Club with two charades. _Pan-demon-ium_ was the first, _Catastrophe_ __the second. For _Pan_ I recited some verses of Mrs. Browning's 'Dead Pan,' with the gods she mentions in the background, my own boy as Hermes. For 'Demon' I had a female Faust and a female Satan. Was aided by Fanny McGregor, Alice Howe, Hamilton Wilde, Charles Carroll, and James C. Davis, with my Flossy, who looked beautifully. The entertainment was voted an entire success." We remember these charades well. The words "Aphrodite, dead and driven As thy native foam thou art ..." call up the vision of Fanny McGregor, white and beautiful, lying on a white couch in an attitude of perfect grace.