"A tall, handsome, active man of seventy-two, with gray hair, with eyes full, still, of the keen fire of youth; with the grand manner which belongs to the high-bred gentlemen of his generation, and the gift to please and to charm which is not always the dower even of a poet."
Her return voyage from Europe in 1891 was a sorrowful one. Just before sailing she notes in her diary: "A sad day,—a telegram in the morning to say that mother was failing." On the day before the steamer made land she writes: "A lovely day, but I am so anxious as to what news of my poor mother awaits me to-morrow"; and the first entry on shore is: "Landed to learn that my dear mother died last Monday, October 26, and was buried Tuesday. Oh, what it is to know that I shall never see her again!"
Louisa Rebecca Chandler, Mrs. Moulton’s Mother
Page 199
The letters of Mrs. Moulton show through these years a growing feeling in regard to the mystery of death. So many of her friends had gone that the brevity of life was more and more deeply impressed upon her. In the correspondence of many of her friends are traces that her letters to them, not now available, had touched upon the questions to her so vital. Mrs. Maxwell (Miss M.E. Braddon) for instance, wrote:
Mrs. Maxwell to Mrs. Moulton
"I have never believed in the gloomy and pitiless creed of the Calvinists. I believe every one is master of his destiny so far as perfect freedom of choice for good or evil. When we take the wrong road we do it perhaps in the blindness of passion, with eyes blind to consequences, minds darkened by selfish desires, by vanity, false ambitions, and by weakly yielding to bad influences."
Canon Bell to Mrs. Moulton