Unlike Lady Macbeth in other respects, she was suited to bear men-children. And, thanks to her true womanhood, she nursed them at the breast. There were no bottle babies in the Hall family. Tradition has it that she endured the pains of childbirth with unusual fortitude, hardly needing a physician. But this seeming strength was due in part to an unwise modesty.
With hardly enough strength for the duties of each day, she did work enough for two women through sheer force of will. It is not surprising then that she died, in the sixty-second year of her age, from a stroke of apoplexy. She was by no means apoplectic in appearance, being rather a pale person; but the blood-vessels of the brain were worn out and could no longer withstand the pressure. In the fall of 1881, after the death of her sister Mary and of Nellie Woodward, daughter of her sister Ruth, she was the victim of a serious sickness, which continued for six months or more. Friends thought she would die; but her sister Ruth came and took care of her, and saved her for ten more years of usefulness. She lived to see her youngest son through college, attended his Class Day, and died a few days after his graduation.
The motive power of her life was religious faith—a faith that outgrew all forms of superstition. Brought up to accept the narrow theology of her mother’s church, she became a Unitarian. The eldest son was sent regularly to the Unitarian Sunday School in Washington; but a quarrel arising in the church, she quietly withdrew, and thereafter assumed the whole responsibility of training her sons in Christian morals. Subsequently she took a keen interest in the Concord School of Philosophy; and, adopting her husband’s view, she looked to science for the regeneration of mankind. In this she was not altogether wise, for her own experience had proven that the advancement of knowledge depends upon a divine enthusiasm, which must be fed by a religion of some sort. Fortunately, she was possessed of a poetic soul, and she never lost religious feeling.
The following poem illustrates very well the faith of her later life:
To Science.
I.
Friend of our race, O Science, strong and wise!
Though thou wast scorned and wronged and sorely tried,
Bound and imprisoned, racked and crucified,
Thou dost in life invulnerable rise