_To Laura_ NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, October 9, 1884. MY DARLING LAURA,-- My poor wits, in these days, are like bits of sewing silk wound on a card. You unwind a little and straightway come to an end. The wonder is, there are so many ends. Here is a precise picture of our days as passed at present. Morning, I wake early, lie and think over my past life, with little satisfaction. Bathe. Breakfast. Walk with Maud, Sonny[95] tugging alongside. Maud goes much further than I do. Sonny and I return, take a basket and gather dry twigs to brighten the evening fire. I visit my mare in her stable--a good custom, as my man is not over-careful of her stall. Maud comes back, I _exercise_ her voice. I go to books, she to desk. Study Greek a good deal, reading Thucydides and Aristophanes. Dinner, coffee, more reading and writing, unless we go to town. Evening, music, reading or cards, worrying about ----, bed. I have not mentioned my own much writing, because you will understand it. I am trying to compass a story, but have my fears about it. My paper for the Woman's Congress is entitled "How to broaden the Views of Society Women." Darling dear, what more can I tell you? Isn't this too much already? Now, do spunk up and have some style about you.... Be cheerful and resolute, my love, life comes but once, and is soon over.... [95] John Howe Hall. "_October 13._ To New Bedford, for the Suffrage meeting; trains did not connect at Myricks, where, after some delay and negotiation, I with difficulty persuaded the conductor of a freight train to take me to New Bedford in his caboose. This saved me time enough to go to the Delano Mansion, restore my strength with food, and put on my cap and ruche. The Delanos were very kind. I read my Congress paper on 'Benefits of Suffrage to Women.'" "_November 23._ To Louisburg Square to my old friend's funeral [Hamilton Wilde].... Around and before me were the friends and associates of the golden time in which his delightful humor and _bonhomie_ so often helped me in charades and other high times. It was ghostly--there were Lizzie Homans and Jerry Abbott, who took part with him and William Hunt in the wonderful charade in which the two artists rode a tilt with theatre hobbies. The gray heads which I had once seen black, brown, or blond, heightened the effect of the picture. It was indeed a _sic transit_. I said to Charles Perkins--'For some of us, it is the dressing bell!' Oh! this mystery! So intense, so immense a fact and force as human life, tapering to this little point of a final leave-taking and brief remembrance!" Now came the New Orleans Exposition, in which she was to be chief of the Woman's Department.