No multitude strews branches in their way, Not in their praise the loud arena strives; Still as a flameless incense rises up The costly patience of their offered lives. J. W. H. We have seen that after the Doctor's death our mother felt that another chapter of life had begun for her. It was a changed world without that great and dominant personality. She missed the strength on which she had leaned for so many years, the weakness which through the past months she had tended and cherished. Henceforth she must lead, not follow; must be captain instead of mate. In another sense, the new life had actually begun for her some years before, when she first took up public activities; to those activities she now turned the more ardently for the great void that was left in heart and home. We must now go back to the later sixties, and speak of her special interests at that time. Looking back over her long life, we see her in three aspects, those of the student, the artist, the reformer. First came youth, with its ardent study; then maturity, with its output of poems, plays, essays. So far she had followed the natural course of creative minds, which must absorb and assimilate in order that they may give out. It is in the third phase that we find the aspect of her later life, a clear vision of the needs of humanity, and a profound hospitality which made it imperative for her to give with both hands not only what she had inherited, but what she had earned. Having enjoyed unusual advantages herself, the moment she saw the way to give other women these advantages, she was eager to "help the woman-standard new unfurled." In the first number of the "Woman's Journal," of which she was one of the founders and first editors, she writes (January 8, 1870):-- "We who stand beside the cradle of this enterprise are not young in years. Our children are speedily preparing to take our place in the ranks of society. Some of us have been looking thoughtfully toward the final summons, not because of ill health or infirmity, but because, after the establishment of our families, no great object intervened between ourselves and that last consummation. But these young undertakings detain us in life. While they need so much care and counsel, we cannot consent to death. And this first year, at least, of our Journal, we are determined to live through." Again she writes of this new departure:--