frost king was at work; all my grand old trees, that stood like
sentinels, to mark the boundary of my domain, were stripped of their
foliage, and their brilliant colors had faded into a uniform brown; but
the evergreens and the tall, prim cedars held their own, and, when
covered with snow, their exquisite beauty brought tears to my eyes. One
need never be lonely mid beautiful trees.

My thoughts were with my absent children--Harriot in France, Theodore in
Germany, Margaret with her husband and brother Gerrit, halfway across
the continent, and Bob still in college. I spent the day writing letters
and walking up and down the piazza, and enjoyed, from my windows, a
glorious sunset. Alone, on birthdays or holidays, one is very apt to
indulge in sad retrospections. The thought of how much more I might have
done for the perfect development of my children than I had accomplished,
depressed me. I thought of all the blunders in my own life and in their
education. Little has been said of the responsibilities of parental
life; accordingly little or nothing has been done. I had such visions of
parental duties that day that I came to the conclusion that parents
never could pay the debt they owe their children for bringing them into
this world of suffering, unless they can insure them sound minds in
sound bodies, and enough of the good things of this life to enable them
to live without a continual struggle for the necessaries of existence. I
have no sympathy with the old idea that children owe parents a debt of
gratitude for the simple fact of existence, generally conferred without
thought and merely for their own pleasure. How seldom we hear of any
high or holy preparation for the office of parenthood! Here, in the most
momentous act of life, all is left to chance. Men and women, intelligent
and prudent in all other directions, seem to exercise no forethought
here, but hand down their individual and family idiosyncrasies in the
most reckless mariner.