Copyright, 1910, by Harper & Brothers
————
All rights reserved
————
Published April, 1910
Printed in the United States of America
WITH
REVERENT TENDERNESS
THIS SIMPLE STORY OF MY LONG LIFE
IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
CONTENTS
| CHAP. | PAGE | |
| I. | Forebears and Patron Saint | [1] |
| II. | Lafayette; Revolutionary Tales; Parents’ Marriage | [16] |
| III. | A Country Exile; Death of the First-Born; Change of Home; A Fireside Tragedy; “Cogito, Ergo Sum” | [27] |
| IV. | A Berserker Rage; A Fright; The Western Fever; Montrose; A Mother Regained | [37] |
| V. | Our Powhatan Home; A Country Funeral; “Old Mrs. O’Hara” | [52] |
| VI. | Old-Fashioned Husband’s Love-Letter; An Almost Homicide; A “Slaughtered Monster”; A Wesleyan Schoolmistress | [61] |
| VII. | My First Tutor; The Reign of Terror | [70] |
| VIII. | Calm After Storm; Our Handsome Yankee Governess; The Nascent Author | [84] |
| IX. | A College Neighborhood; The World Widens; A Beloved Tutor; Colonization Dreams and Disappointment; Major Morton | [90] |
| X. | Family Letters; Commencement at Hampden-Sidney; Then and Now | [104] |
| XI. | Back in Powhatan; Old Virginia Housewifery; A Singing-Class in the Forties; The Simple Life? | [110] |
| XII. | Election Day and a Democratic Barbecue | [117] |
| XIII. | A Whig Rally and Muster Day | [129] |
| XIV. | Rumors of Changes; A Corn-Shucking; A Negro Topical Song | [143] |
| XV. | The Country Girls at a City School; Velvet Hats and Clay’s Defeat | [149] |
| XVI. | Home at Christmas; A Candy-Pull and Hog-Killing | [162] |
| XVII. | A Notable Affair of Honor | [171] |
| XVIII. | The Menace of Slave Insurrection | [186] |
| XIX. | Wedding and Bridesmaid; The Routine of a Large Family; My First Bereavement | [196] |
| XX. | Our True Family Ghost-Story | [203] |
| XXI. | Two Monumental Friendships | [218] |
| XXII. | The “Old African Church” | [227] |
| XXIII. | How “Alone” Came to Be | [237] |
| XXIV. | The Dawning of Literary Life | [246] |
| XXV. | Brought Face to Face with My Fate | [254] |
| XXVI. | Literary Well-Wishers; George D. Prentice; Mrs. Sigourney; Grace Greenwood; H. W. Longfellow; James Redpath; The “Wandering Jew” | [262] |
| XXVII. | My Northern Kinspeople; “Quelqu’un” and Lifelong Friendship | [270] |
| XXVIII. | My First Opera; “Peter Parley”; Rachel as “Camille”; Bayard Taylor; T. B. Aldrich; G. P. Morris; Maria Cummins; Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney | [280] |
| XXIX. | Anna Cora (Mowatt) Ritchie; Edward Everett; Governor Wise; A Memorable Dinner-Party | [288] |
| XXX. | A Musical Convention; George Francis Root; When “The Shining Shore” was First Sung; The Hallelujah Chorus; Betrothal; Dempster in His Old Age | [297] |
| XXXI. | Wedding Bells; A Bridal Tour; A Discovered Relative; A Noble Life | [304] |
| XXXII. | Parsonage Life; William Wirt Henry; Historic Soil; John Randolph; The Last of the Randolphs | [313] |
| XXXIII. | Plantation Preaching; Colored Communicants; A “Mighty Man in Prayer” | [325] |
| XXXIV. | My Novitiate as a Practical Housewife; My Cook “Gets Her Hand Out”; Inception of “Common Sense in the Household” | [333] |
| XXXV. | The Stirred “Nest Among the Oaks”; A Crucial Crisis | [346] |
| XXXVI. | Migration Northward; Acclimation; Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in New York; Political Portents | [355] |
| XXXVII. | The Panic of ’61; A Virginia Vacation; Mutterings of Coming Storm | [363] |
| XXXVIII. | The Fourteenth of April, 1861, in Richmond | [370] |
| XXXIX. | “The Last Through Train for Four Years” | [382] |
| XL. | Domestic Sorrows and National Storm and Stress; Friends, Tried and True | [389] |
| XLI. | Fort Delaware; “Old Glory”; Lincoln’s Assassination; The Released Prisoner of War | [399] |
| XLII. | A Christmas Reunion; A Midnight Warning; How a Good Man Came to “The Happiest Day of His Life” | [408] |
| XLIII. | Two Bridals; A Birth and a Passing; “My Little Love”; “Drifting Out”; A Nonpareil Parish | [417] |
| XLIV. | Two Years Overseas; Life in Rome and Geneva | [427] |
| XLV. | Sunnybank; A New England Parish; “My Boys”; Two “Starred” Names | [436] |
| XLVI. | Return To Middle States; The Holy Land; My Friends the Missionaries; Two Consuls in Jerusalem | [448] |
| XLVII. | Lucerne; Good Samaritans and an Englishman; A Lecture Tour; Ohioan Hospitality; Mr. and Mrs. McKinley | [457] |
| XLVIII. | The Clouds Return After the Rain; Abroad Again; Healing and Health; Idyllic Winter in Florence | [470] |
| XLIX. | The Going-Out of a Young Life; Present Activities; “Literary Hearthstones”; Grateful Reminiscences | [481] |
| Appendix | [491] | |
| A Fraternal Tribute | ||
| The Golden Wedding | ||