Below stairs Dr. Bannister and father are talking of secession, the cabinet and the prospect of civil war, topics of startling interest to every patriotic heart. The opinion generally expressed is that a collision is inevitable, and will occur within a very few days. God pity us and forgive the accumulations of crime and folly that have brought so near us a result so terrible as this would be.

March 5, 1860.-What am I doing? Whose cares do I relieve? Who is wiser, better or happier because I live? Nothing would go on differently without me, unless, as I remarked to-day to Mary with bitter playfulness, the front stairs might not be swept so often! Now these are awful thoughts. But come, let us reason together. What more could I do if I would? Mother does not work, she says, more than is healthful for her, keeping the front room in order and giving instructions to "Belinda" (father's invariable name for "a lady in a subordinate capacity"). There are no younger brothers and sisters to be cared for as is the case in many homes. Evanston has no poor people. Nobody seems to need me. In my present position there is actually nothing I might do that I do not, except to sew a little and make cake! Now that is the fact. I may acknowledge a feeling of humiliation as I see so plainly how well the world can spare me. But perhaps I may be needed some day and am only waiting for the crisis. Who can tell? We are told that God in his wisdom makes nothing in vain. Thus having moralized I lean back in my easy-chair and resume the reading of Poe's ghostly tales, which, with a little twinge of conscience at the thought of my uselessness, I laid aside a moment since.

March 15.-Let us see, mother and Mary have been sick but are getting well again. Xantippe of the kitchen has left; I have been doing the work as well as I could for a few days, and now a gentler spirit rules over the culinary department.

April 20.-How many unwritten romances careful observers might find in the lives of the so-called "commonplace people" whom one meets every day! A story as powerful as Rebecca Harding's "Life in the Iron Mills" might be woven from materials I wot of, the characters being men and women who live and labor within a circle of a mile from where I sit this minute, men and women whom I pass on the street now and then, or see at church.

A hungry soul and a bruised heart are objects more pitiful, I think, than a maimed limb or abject penury. I wish my mission might be to those who make no sign, yet suffer most intensely under their cold, impassive faces. The pain of a sensitive nature feeling that it does not adequately represent itself, that it is misapprehended and placed below its deserts, that its efforts to rise are viewed with carelessness by the most generous in the community, that it is denied companionship with those whose society it craves or feels that it deserves-no words can measure this. These people whose souls sit on the ends of their nerves, and to whom a cold look or a slighting word is like frost to the flower-God pity them! This world is a hard place for natures so fine as theirs. They are like the rare porcelain out of which beautiful vases are made. The coarser natures whose nerves, after coming

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to the surface, bend back again, can no more comprehend their finely constituted brethren than I can conceive of a sixth sense. This non-recognition of claims she was too sensitive to push before the public, pinched the face of Mrs. S. and killed her at last, I steadfastly believe. This carelessness and coldness makes B., splendid fellow as he is, reserved and untrusting; why, practically, no ones cares for him more than if he were a dog, and his burrowing place is a matter of as much indifference as a gopher's might be. Mr. A., a man of fine intellect and large cultivation, lies year in and year out on his bed upon the "Ridge," helpless and alone. Who goes to see him? Who tries to make his life happier or more endurable? Who tries to lead him into the beautiful life of the heaven we talk about and stupidly expect, somehow, to gain? What wonder that he is cynical and misanthropic, wasting the years of middle-life when other men's pulses thrill with strength; shut out from active duty when his need for work is sorest; laid aside in the darkness of his curtained chamber and left alone while the busy hum of life goes on as ever, and he sees he is not counted, needed nor regarded in any way. He hears the whistle of the engine, and the cars go thundering by; the college bell rings every hour and its tones fall on his listless ear. Teams rumble past. He hears men's voices talking with each other. All this comes to him heavy with reproach and taunting him with the unfulfilled promise of his youth. In summer in the fields he hears the click of the reaper and knows that they are using his invention; knows how the wonderful automatic hand stretches out and grasps the heads of wheat that the sunshine and rain have ripened, the hand so human in its motion, that he contrived by much of thought and study. He hears quick steps on the walk under the window, but he is a deformed man and will never walk again; thrown from a carriage in Chicago, years ago, he was taken up as dead, and since then he has done nothing of the work of the world. He looks into the fireplace where the coal is kept blazing winter and summer-his only company. Does anybody think God takes no notice of all this?

The B.'s who are kept out of the literary society by the unkindness of some of its members, and the stupidity of the rest; Miss A. who is not asked into the reading circle, where it is her right to be by virtue of the exertion she has made to cultivate and enrich her intellect and character; Mrs. J., at whom a shallow school-girl could laugh, if she attempted to recall the music she learned years ago when better fortunes were upon her; Mrs. M., who is disregarded utterly, though refined and educated; even "Ruth Ann," at whom we laugh unblushingly all the cases of these people cry to heaven for justice, and will have it, too, at last. These look like little matters, yet nothing is trivial, as Mrs. Stowe has said, "since the human soul with its awful shadow makes all things sacred." Nothing is a light matter that makes my heart ache or the hearts of any of my human kin. God accounts nothing slight that brings a tear to any eye, a stinging flush to any cheek, or a chill to the heart of any creature He has thought fit to make and to endow with body, brain and soul.

I hate the spirit in any one that seeks to gain the notice of the influen

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tial in society by fawning, or undue attention of any sort. I love a brave, strong character that walks the earth with the step of a king, and an eye that does not quail before anything except its own dishonor. All can not do this, but there are some who can. The man, woman or child that makes me uncomfortable, that stabs me with an undeserved reproach or rebuke, that dwells upon my faults like a fly upon an ulcer, that slights me or needlessly wounds me in any way that man, woman or child I may forgive, but only through God's spirit striving with my wrath. I will shun them, and in my heart I must despise them and this, not because I am weak or clinging. according to the views of some people, but because, be I weak or strong, I will stand up for justice so long as I have power, and I hereby declare that I will speak more kindly and considerately to those whose claims are unrecognized by the society in which I live, than I will to any others. I will bow more cordially to those to whom persons of position do not bow at all, and I will try in a thousand pleasant, nameless ways to make them happier. God help me to keep my promise good!

Another branch of this same subject relates to those who live among us and do our work, perform the menial services for us that we think ourselves too good to do; who are cared for as we would care for the dogs and horses, well fed and warmed and promptly paid, but spoken to with harshness often, treated with unreasonable severity as if they had not brains and souls, but were animals conveniently gifted, somehow, with the power of speech. Who says kind words to the man that blacks his boots, to the maid that makes his bed and sweeps his hearth? Who employs the graceful "Thank you," and "Won't you please," that softens down the sharp tone of a command? O we forget these things! We are just mean enough to disregard decency and kindness in the cases where we dare to do it. I have called at houses where in the room a girl sat sewing, more beautiful, graceful and well-bred than my hostess ever dared to be, yet she has taken no more notice of this girl than if she were a brute, nor attracted my attention to her by an introduction or the faintest indication of one, though descanting eloquently on the virtues of the sleek skye-terrier at her side. The poor and the unlovely fare hardly in this world of ours. Climb the ladder yourself to enviable distinction, or reach a comfortable mediocrity by your own exertions, and you will be treated with all-sufficient consideration; but while you are climbing, look only for cold indifference, at best, and if you begin to stagger or fall, then kicks and cuffs will shower upon you with an energy surprising to contemplate. Oh, that I were a Don Quixote in a better cause than his, or even Sancho Panza to some mightier spirit, who I trust will come upon the earth some day!

April 21, 1861.- On this beautiful Sabbath day the unusual sound of the whistle and the thundering cars, has been heard for the first time, and our thoughts have been more of war, I fear, than of the God of battles whom we tried to worship. It is twilight and soon I shall go peacefully to sleep, but while I am asleep a thousand soldiers will pass through our quiet village on their way to "the war," that terrible Something which hangs over us black and portentous. Somewhere in Wisconsin, and on the broad,

bright plains of Minnesota, mothers and sisters, daughters and wives will be weeping and praying to-night for these soldiers. God pity them and give them peace.

April 27, 1861.—I want to tell how with all their beauty sadness has been interwoven with these bright days, for Oliver has signed the pledge that he would go to the war if called upon. The students of the Theological Institute have organized a company and are drilling every day, preparing to go if it becomes their duty. I can not tell how my heart sickened and was rebellious for awhile as I thought of what might be. Went with mother and the other ladies to the Theological school to attend the exercises in honor of the banner presented to the students by Mrs. Bishop Simpson. We enjoyed it greatly.

May 5, 1861.-An eventful day to me Mary and I publicly declared our determination and endeavor, with God's help, to live as Christians. We were baptized and received into the church and partook of the sacrament. Those were solemn vows we took; I almost trembled as our voices mingled in the responses to the questions asked us. I felt how solemn a thing it was, how awful the responsibility that would henceforth rest upon us, and yet the ceremony seemed very beautiful to me. We knelt there at the altar, we whose lives and hearts and thoughts had been one; it was most fitting that we should in this, as in everything, be together.