Her friends used to say to her, “I wish you joy of the worm.” And when at last her release arrived, the event of her death had really such a comic tinge in the eyes of every one who knew her, that her friends feared they might, at her funeral, not dare to look at each other, lest they should forget the serious proprieties of the hour. She gave high counsels. It was the privilege of certain boys to have this immeasurably high standard indicated to their childhood; a blessing which nothing else in education could supply. It is frivolous to ask,--“And was she ever a Christian in practice?” Cassandra uttered, to a frivolous, skeptical time, the arcana of the Gods: but it is easy to believe that Cassandra domesticated in a lady’s house would have proved a troublesome boarder. Is it the less desirable to have the lofty abstractions because the abstractionist is nervous and irritable? Shall we not keep Flamsteed and Herschel in the observatory, though it should even be proved that they neglected to rectify their own kitchen clock? It is essential to the safety of every mackerel fisher that latitudes and longitudes should be astronomically ascertained; and so every banker, shopkeeper and wood-sawyer has a stake in the elevation of the moral code by saint and prophet. Very rightly, then, the Christian ages, proceeding on a grand instinct, have said: Faith alone, Faith alone. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 14: Aunt of Mr. Emerson, and a potent influence on the lives of him and his brothers. This paper was read before the “Woman’s Club,” in Boston, in 1869, under the title “Amita,” which was also the original superscription of the “Nun’s Aspiration,” in his Poems; a rendering into verse of a passage in Miss Emerson’s diary. Part of this poem forms the motto of this chapter.] SAMUEL HOAR. Magno se judice quisque tuetur; Victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni. A YEAR ago, how often did we meet Beneath these elms, once more in sober bloom, Thy tall, sad figure pacing down the street, And now the robin sings above thy tomb! Thy name on other shores may ne’er be known, Though Rome austere no graver consul knew, But Massachusetts her true son shall own; Out of her soil thy hardy virtues grew. She loves the man that chose the conquered cause, With upright soul that bowed to God alone; The clean hands that upheld her equal laws, The old religion ne’er to be outgrown; The cold demeanor, the warm heart beneath, The simple grandeur of thy life and death. F. B. SANBORN. April, 1857. SAMUEL HOAR. SPEECH AT CONCORD, MASS., 4TH NOV. [ELECTION DAY], 1856.