There are many references in my mother's diaries and letters to my father's enforced monotony, and also to his gradually failing health, which, by the very instinct of loving alarm, we none of us analyzed as fatal; though, from his expression of face, if for no other reason, I judge he himself understood it perfectly. Death sat with him, at his right hand, long before he allowed his physical decline to change his mode of life. He tried to stem the tide setting against him, because it is the drowning man's part, even if hopeless. He walked a great deal upon the high hill-ridge behind the house, his dark, quietly moving figure passing slowly across the dim light of the mingled sky and branches, as seen from the large lawn, around which the embowered terraces rose like an amphitheatre. A friend tells me that, from a neighboring farm, he sometimes watched my father in an occupation which he had undertaken for his health. A cord of wood had been cut upon the hill, and he deliberately dragged it to the lower level of his dwelling, two logs at a time, by means of a rope. Along the ridge and down the winding pine-flanked path he slowly and studiously stepped, musing, looking up, stopping to solve some point of plot or morals; and meanwhile the cord of wood changed its abiding-place as surely as water may wear away a stone. But his splendid vigor paled, his hair grew snowy white, before the end. My mother wrote to him in the following manner from time to time, when he was away for change of scene:-- September 9, 1860. My crown of glory. This morning I waked to clouds and rain, but for myself I did not care, as you were not here to be depressed by it. There was a clear and golden sunset, making the loveliest shadows and lights on the meadows and across my straight path [over the field to the willows, between firs], and now the stars shine.--The way in which Concordians observe Fast is by loafing about the streets, driving up and down, and dawdling generally. No one seems to mourn over his own or his country's sins. Such behavior must disturb our Puritan fathers even on the other side of the Jordan.--In the evening Julian brought me a letter. "It is from New York," said he, "but not from papa." But my heart knew better, though I did not know the handwriting. I clashed it open, and saw "N. H.," and then, "I am entirely well," not scratched out. Thank God! . . . The sun has not shone to-day, and there is now a stormy wind that howls like a beast of prey over its dead. It is the most ominous, boding sound I ever heard. March 15, 1862. The news of your appetite sends new life into me, and immediately increases my own.