Letters of Lydia Maria Child, with a biographical introduction by John G. Whittier and an appendix by Wendell Phillips.

172 LETTERS.
his parents had been such consistent and generous
friends of freedom; but after all, they have their reward in having a son to whom opportunities for moral
greatness came not in vain. Your Robert, too, —
people say the war has ripened in him all manly qualities. God bless and protect the two young heroes!
They told me in Boston that they had both offered
to lead colored soldiers. Is it so?
I thank you very much for the lovely photograph
of S. What a pity it is that the ancients were
ignorant of this wonderful process! How I should
like a photograph of Plato! and how I should like to
have a representation of the Venus of Milo unmutilated. Nothing within my limited knowledge of ancient art affects me like that miraculous statue. Is it
a Venus? Always it seems to me like the heroic Antigone proclaiming to the tyrant Creon that there is
a "higher law" than that of kings. The physical
beauty of the woman is wonderfully inspired with
moral majesty.
TO THE SAMIE.
WAYLAND, 1863.
I have been travelling through dark and thorny
places, dear, where there were no roses of thought to
send to you; and ever overhead has been the great
murky cloud of public affairs that will not scatter
and let the sunshine through.
I am glad, dear, that new bright links are being
continually added to your life. To me there come
no changes but sad ones; no new links - only the
continually dropping away, one after another, of the
old ones. The decease of my brother adds greatly
to my loneliness. In my isolated position, he was