It is good for our young civilization to see and study that of the old world, and observe the hopelessness of lifting the masses into freedom and freedom's industry, honesty and integrity. How any American, any lover of our free institutions based on equality of rights for all, can settle down and live here is more than I can comprehend. It will be only by overturning the powers that education and equal chances ever can come to the rank and file. The hope of the world is indeed in our republic; so let us work to make it a _genuine_ democracy, where every citizen--woman as well as man--shall be crowned with the one symbol of equality--the ballot.... ROME, April 5. MY DEAR SISTER: How these anniversary days of our dear mother's illness and death bring back to me everything, even at this distance and amid these strange surroundings. How she would have enjoyed these sights because of her knowledge and love of history. She could have told the Bible story of every one of these great frescoes. What a woman she would have been, could she have had the opportunities of education and culture which her granddaughters are having.... Tell Mrs. Lewia Smith her lovely piece of lace has been honored with the wearing in London and Rome several times and has been pronounced beautiful; but I prize it most of all for the giver's sake. No one but she would have trudged through the slush and rain to get those splendid names to that testimonial. Nothing which came to me gave so much pleasure as those signatures of my own townsmen and women, from President Anderson all the way to the end of the list.... This evening Rachel has gone to a friend's to study German so as to make our way with that nationality. What a jumble, that by just crossing an imaginary line one finds people who can't understand a word one says! Last evening we heard the grand Ristori render a part of Dante's Inferno and a selection from Joan of Arc. Of course I couldn't understand a word she said, but her voice, her gestures, her expression told the whole story. Then the music, vocal and instrumental, was the softest and sweetest.... ZURICH, April 23.