"And then I saw the victory. All of evil was gone from the earth. Misery was blotted out. Mankind was emancipated and ready to march forward in a new Era of human understanding, all-encompassing sympathy and ever-present help, the Era of perfect love, of peace passing understanding."
Mrs. Humphry Ward was in Boston this spring, and there were many pleasant festivities in her honor.
A "luncheon with Mrs. Humphry Ward at Annie Fields'; very pleasant. Edward Emerson there, easy and delightful...."
A fine reception at the Vendôme, where she and Mrs. Ward stood under "a beautiful arch of roses" and exchanged greetings.
"A delightful call from Mrs. Humphry Ward. We had much talk of persons admired in England and America. She has great personal attraction, is not handsome, but very 'simpatica' and is evidently whole-souled and sincere, with much 'good-fellowship.' We embraced at parting."
In strong contrast to this is her comment on a writer whose work did not appeal to her. "But she has merit; yes, she certainly has merit. In fact—" with a flash—"she is meret-ricious!"
May brought the Free Religious Banquet, at which she "compared the difference of sect to the rainbow which divides into its beauty the white light of truth"; and the State Federation of Women's Clubs, where another apt comparison occurred to her.
"I compared the old order among women to the juxtaposition of squares set cornerwise to each other; the intensity of personal feeling and interest infusing an insensible antagonism into our relations with each other. 'Now,' I said, 'the comparison being removed, we no longer stand cornerwise to each other, but so that we can fit into line, and stand and act in concert.'..."
"Newport. I begin to feel something of the 'labor and sorrow' of living so long. I don't even enjoy my books as I used to. My efforts to find a fit word for the Biennial [of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, to meet in Boston, June 22 and 23] are not successful...."
She soon revived under her green trees, and enjoyed her books as much as ever: "got hold of" her screed, wrote it, went up to Boston to deliver it, came back to meet an excursion party of "Biennial" ladies visiting Newport. (N.B. She was late for the reception, and her neighbor, Bradford Norman, drove her into Newport in his automobile "at a terrific clip." On alighting, "Braddie," she said, "if I were ten years younger, I would set up one of these hell-wagons myself!")