After such a rush of impression and emotion, the return to everyday life could not fail to bring about a corresponding drop in our mother's mental barometer. Vexations awaited her. The Boylston Place house had been let for a year, and—Green Peace being also let on a long lease—the reunited family took refuge for the winter in the "Doctor's Wing" of the Perkins Institution.
Again, an extremely unfavorable critique of "Later Lyrics" in a prominent review distressed her greatly; her health was more or less disturbed; above all, the sudden death of John A. Andrew, the beloved and honored friend of many years, saddened both her and the Doctor deeply.
All these things affected her spirits to some extent, so that the Journal for the remainder of 1867 is in a minor key.
"... In despair about the house...."
On hearing of the separation of Charles Sumner from his wife:—
"For men and women to come together is nature—for them to live together is art—to live well, high art."
"November 21. Melancholy, thinking that I did but poorly last evening [at a reading from her 'Notes on Travel' at the Church of the Disciples].... At the afternoon concert felt a savage and tearful melancholy, a profound friendlessness. In the whole large assembly I saw no one who would help me to do anything worthy of my powers and life-ideal. I have so dreamed of high use that I cannot decline to a life of amusement or of small occupation."
"... I believe in God, but am utterly weary of man."
After a disappointment:—
"... To church, where my mental condition speedily improved. Sermon on the Good Samaritan. Hymns and prayers all congenial and consoling. Felt much consoled and uplifted out of all petty discords and disappointments. A disappointment should be digested in patience, not vomited in spleen. Bitter morsels nourish the soul, not less perhaps than sweet. Thought of the following: Moral philosophy begins with the fact of accepting human life."