It sometimes seemed as if she were interested only in those whom she knew she could benefit. If so, it was from her ever-present consciousness of a consecrated life. She constantly sought for ways of showing her love to Christ, especially to His sick and suffering and sorrowing ones. Life with her was peculiarly intense and earnest; she looked upon it more as a discipline and a hard path, and yet no one had a quicker or more admiring eye for the flowers by the wayside. I always thought that her great forte was the study of character. She laid bare and dissected everybody, even her nearest friends and herself, to find what was in them; and what she found, reproduced in her books, was what gave them their peculiar charm of reality. The growth of the religious life in the heart was the one most interesting subject to her.
I never could fully understand the deep sadness which was the groundwork of her nature. It certainly did not prevent the most intense enjoyment of her rich temporal and spiritual blessings, while it indicated depths which her friends did not fathom. It was partly constitutional, doubtless, and partly, I suppose, from her keener sensitiveness, her larger grasp, her stronger convictions, her more vivid vision, and more ardent desires. Even the glowing, almost seraphic love of Christ which was the chief characteristic of her later life was, in her words, "but longing and seeking." She was an exile yearning for her home, "stepping heavenward," and knowing better than the rest of us what it meant.
These things come to me now, and yet how much I have omitted—her industry so varied and untiring, her generosity (so many gifts of former days are around me now), her interest in my children, her delight in flowers and colors and all beautiful things, her ready sympathy—but it is an almost inexhaustible subject. She comes vividly before me now, seated on the floor in her room, with her work around her, making something for such and such a person. What the void in your life must be those who knew most of her manifold, exalted, inspiring life can but imagine.
"Nay, Hope may whisper with the dead
By bending forward where they are;
But Memory, with a backward tread,
Communes with them afar!
"The joys we lose are but forecast,
And we shall find them all once more;
We look behind us for the past,
But, lo! 'tis all before!"
[1] See Memoir of S. S. Prentiss, edited by his Brother, and published by Charles Scribner's Sons. New Edition. 1879.
[2] The following is part of the notice in the London Daily News:
"We are, unfortunately, ignorant of Little Susy's Six Birthdays, but if that book be anything like as good as the charming volume before us by the same author, ycleped Little Lou's Sayings and Doings, it deserves an extraordinary popularity…. Little Lou. is one of the most natural stories in the world, and reads more like a mother's record of her child's sayings and doings than like a fictitious narrative. Little Lou, be it remarked, is a true baby throughout, instead of being a precocious little prig, as so many good children are in print. The child's love for his mother and his mother's love for him is described in the prettiest way possible."
[3] Now Professor of Theology at Bangor.
[4] The following is an extract from a letter of one of the editors of The Advance, Mr. J. B. T. Marsh, dated Chicago, August 10,1869:—"You will notice that the story is completed this week; I wish it could have continued six months longer. I have several times been on the point of writing you to express my own personal satisfaction—and more than satisfaction—in reading it, and to acquaint you with the great unanimity and volume of praise of it, which has reached us from our readers. I do not think anything since the National Era and 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' times has been more heartily received by newspaper readers. I am sure it will have a great sale if rightly brought before the public. A publisher from London was in our office the other day, signifying a desire to make some arrangement to bring it out there. I have heard almost no unfavorable criticism of the story—nothing which you could make serviceable in its revision. I have heard Dr. P. criticise Ernest—of course the character and not your portrayal. For myself I consider the character a natural and consistent one. Perhaps few men are found who are quite so blind to a wife's wants and yet so devoted, but—I don't know what the wives might say. We have had hundreds of letters of which the expression has been, 'We quarrel to see who shall have the first reading of the story.' I congratulate you most heartily upon its great success and the great good it has done and will yet do. I think if you should ever come West my wife would overturn almost any stone for the sake of welcoming you to the hospitality of our cottage on the Lake Michigan shore."