We hear our mother's voice reciting the stately verses. We see her as the "female Faust," first bending over her book, then listening entranced to the promises of Mephistopheles, finally vanishing behind a curtain from which the next instant sprang Florence (the one child who resembled her) in all the gayety of her bright youth. The next day she was, "Very weary all day. Put things to rights as well as I could. Read in Spinoza, Cotta, and Livy." It was for the Brain Club that she wrote "The Socio-Maniac," a cantata caricaturing fashionable society. She set the words to music, and sang with much solemnity the "Mad Song" of the heroine whose brain had been turned by too much gayety:-- "Her mother was a Shaw, And her father was a Tompkins; Her sister was a bore, And her brother was a bumpkin; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty! "Her flounces were of gold, And her slippers were of ermine; And she looked a little bold When she rose to lead the Germin; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty! "For my part I never saw Where she kept her fascination; But I thought she had an aw- Ful conceit and affectation; Oh! Soci--oh! Soci-- Oh! Soci--e--ty!" New interests were constantly arising. In these days Edwin Booth made his first appearance in Boston. Our mother and father went to the Boston Theatre one rainy evening, "expecting to see nothing more than an ordinary performance. The play was 'Richelieu,' and we had seen but little of Mr. Booth's part in it before we turned to each other and said, 'This is the real thing!'" Then they saw him in "Hamlet" and realized even more fully that a star had risen. He seemed ... beautiful as dreams of maidenhood, That doubt defy, Young Hamlet, with his forehead grief-subdued, And visioning eye.[50] [50] "Hamlet at the Boston," _Later Lyrics_, 1866. Mr. Booth's manager asked her to write a play for the young tragedian. She gladly consented; Booth himself came to see her; she found him "modest, intelligent, and above all genuine,--the man as worthy of admiration as the artist." In all the range of classic fiction, to which her mind naturally turned, no character seemed to fit him so well as that of Hippolytus; his austere beauty, his reserve and shyness, all seemed to her the personification of the hunter-prince, beloved of Artemis, and she chose this theme for her play. The writing of "Hippolytus" was accomplished under difficulties. She says of it:--