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

INTRODUCTION. six
itv.':ten," she continues,'"are of small consequence in comparison with principles, and the principle for wvhich John Brown died is the question at
issue between us." These letters were soon published
in pamphlet form, and had the immense circulation
of 300,000 copies.
In 1867 she published " A Romance of the Republie," a story of the days of slavery; powerful in its
delineation of some of the saddest as well as the most
dramatic conditions of master and slave in the Southern States. Her husbandcl, who had been long an
invalid, died in 1874. After his death her home, in
winter especially, became a lonely one; and in 1877
she begran to spend the cold months in Boston.
HIer last publication was in 1878, when her'"Aspirations of the World," a book of selections, on
moral and religious subjects, from the literature of all
nations and times, was given to the public. The introduction, occupying fifty pages, shows, at threescore and ten, her mental vigor unabated, and is remarlkable for its wvise, philosophic tone atnd felicity of
diction. It has the broad liberality of her umore elaborate work on the same subject, and in the mellow
lighlt of life's sunset her words seem touched;with a
tender pathos and beauty. "All we poor mortals,"
she says, "are groping our wvay through paths that
are dim with shadows; and we are all striving, with
steps more or less stumbling, to follow some. guidilng
star. As we travel on, beloved companions of our
pilgrimage vanish from our sight, we know not
whither; and our bereaved hearts utter cries of supplication for more light. We know not where
Hermes Trismegistus lived, or who he was; but his
voice souncds plaintively human', coming up from the