NOTEBOOK
trouble in traveling, but she had to have it. She was fond
of Browning.
To us she was a prodigy. I mean, in speech she was
that. We of the family believed, and still believe, that she
had no equal among girls of her own age in this regard.
Even the friends thought highly of her gift, though they
could never see her at her best, which was in the unem-
barrassing limits of the family circle.
I did not hear her glorious voice at its supremest. That
was in Hartford, a month or two before the end.
She was not industrious, except in the things in which
she was gifted; she was indolent; she lived mainly in the
clouds; hard, persistent work went against the grain with
her. As a rule, I mean. She mastered the French and Ger-
man and Latin grammars, and of course that does mean
hard, persistent work. Still, as I say, she had a distaste
for toilsome work—a trait which she got from me.
Copy of letter to Mr. Henry C. Robinson, of
Hartford.
London, Sept. 28/96.
It is as you say, dear old friend, "the pathos of it"—
yes, it was a piteous thing—as piteous a tragedy as any
the year can furnish. When we started westward upon
our long trip at half past ten at night, July 14, 1895, ^at
Elmira, Susy stood on the platform in the blaze of the
electric light waving her good-byes to us as the train
glided away, her mother throwing back kisses and watch-
ing her through her tears. One year, one month, and one
week later, Clara and her mother having exactly com-
pleted the circuit of the globe, and drew up at that plat-
form at the same hour of the night, in the same train and
the same car, and again Susy had come a journey and was
near at hand to meet them.^1 She was waiting in the house
she was born in, in her coffin.
^1 Susy had been brought from Hartford to Elmira, for burial.
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