As I take account of my long life, I become well aware of its failures. What may I chronicle as its successes? It was a great distinction for me when the foremost philanthropist of the age chose me for his wife. It was a great success for me when, having been born and bred in New York city, I found myself able to enter into the intellectual life of Boston, and to appreciate the "high thinking" of its choice spirits. I have sat at the feet of the masters of literature, art, and science, and have been graciously admitted into their fellowship. I have been the chosen poet of several high festivals, to wit, the celebration of Bryant's sixtieth birthday, the commemoration of the centenary of his birth, and the unveiling of the statue of Columbus in Central Park, New York, in the Columbian year, so called. I have been the founder of a club of young girls, which has exercised a salutary influence upon the growing womanhood of my adopted city, and has won for itself an honorable place in the community, serving also as a model for similar associations in other cities. I have been for many years the president of the New England Woman's Club, and of the Association for the Advancement of Women. I have been heard at the great Prison Congress in England, at Mrs. Butler's convention _de moralité publique_ in Geneva, Switzerland, and at more than one convention in Paris. I have been welcomed in Faneuil Hall, when I have stood there to rehearse the merits of public men, and later, to plead the cause of oppressed Greece and murdered Armenia. I have written one poem which, although composed in the stress and strain of the civil war, is now sung South and North by the champions of a free government. I have been accounted worthy to listen and to speak at the Boston Radical Club and at the Concord School of Philosophy. I have been exalted to occupy the pulpit of my own dear church and that of others, without regard to denominational limits. Lastly and chiefly, I have had the honor of pleading for the slave when he was a slave, of helping to initiate the woman's movement in many States of the Union, and of standing with the illustrious champions of justice and freedom, for woman suffrage, when to do so was a thankless office, involving public ridicule and private avoidance. I have made a voyage upon a golden river, 'Neath clouds of opal and of amethyst. Along its banks bright shapes were moving ever, And threatening shadows melted into mist. The eye, unpracticed, sometimes lost the current, When some wild rapid of the tide did whirl, While yet a master hand beyond the torrent Freed my frail shallop from the perilous swirl. Music went with me, fairy flute and viol, The utterance of fancies half expressed, And with these, steadfast, beyond pause or trial, The deep, majestic throb of Nature's breast.