When her
voice was not sufficient to make the audience hear, the people rose
from their seats and crowded round her, standing gladly, that no word
might be lost. It was the last leap of the flame which had burned out
a great wrong. From this period, although she continued to write, she
lived chiefly for several winters in the retirement of the Florida
orange grove, which she always enjoyed. Her sympathy was strong with
the new impetus benevolent work in cities had received, and she helped
it from her "grotto" in more ways than one. Sometimes she would write
soothing or inspiriting letters, as the case might demand, to
individuals.
The following note, written at the time of the Boston fire in 1872,
will show how alive she was to the need of that period.
"I send inclosed one hundred dollars to the fund for the Firemen. I
could wish it a hundred times as much, and then it would be inadequate
to express how much I honor those brave, devoted men who put their own
lives between Boston and mine. No soldiers that fell in battle for our
common country ever deserved of us all greater honor than the noble
men whose charred and blackened remains have been borne from the ruins
of Boston; they are worthy to be inscribed on imperishable monuments.
"I would that some such honorary memorial might commemorate their
heroism."
Meanwhile, the comfort she drew in from the beauty of nature and the
calm around her seemed yearly to nourish and renew her power of
existence.
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