THE REV. DR. E. PHELPS, GRANDFATHER OF ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS.
I have sometimes been glad, as my time came to face the long question which life puts to-day to all women who think and feel, and who care for other women and are loyal to them, that I had those early visions of my own to look upon.
When I was learning why the sun rose and the moon set, how the flowers grew and the rain fell, that God and heaven and art and letters existed, that it was intelligent to say one's prayers, and that well-bred children never told a lie, I learned that a mother can be strong and still be sweet, and sweet although she is strong; and that she whom the world and her children both have need of, is of more value to each, for this very reason.
I said it was impossible to be her daughter and not to write. Rather, I should say, impossible to be their daughter and not to have something to say, and a pen to say it.
The comparatively recent close of my father's life has not left him yet forgotten, and it can hardly be necessary for me to do more than to refer to the name of Austin Phelps to recall to that part of our public which knew and loved him the quality of his work.
"The Still Hour" is yet read, and there are enough who remember how widely this book has been known and loved, and how marked was the literary gift in all the professor's work.
It has fallen to me otherwise to say so much of my peculiar indebtedness to my father, that I shall forbid myself, and spare my reader, too much repetition of a loving credit which it would not be possible altogether to omit from this chapter.
He who becomes father and mother in one to motherless children, bears a burden which men shirk or stagger under; and there was not a shirking cell in his brain or heart.