The poem with which I close my tribute to my dear friend, Mrs. Hermann, is especially fitting to her beautiful life. Her family, even after they were all married and in happy homes of their own, were expected by the mother every Sunday evening. These occasions were inexpressibly dear to her warm heart, devoted to her children and grandchildren. But owing to her reticence she was even to them really unknown.
I had given at first many more instances of her almost daily ministrations but later this seemed to be in direct opposition to her oft-expressed wish for no recognition of her gifts. "We are spirits clad in veils," but of Mrs. Hermann this was especially true and I love her memory too well not to regard her wishes as sacred.
Thought is deeper than all speech, Feeling deeper than all thought; Souls to souls can never teach What unto themselves was taught.
We are spirits clad in veils; Man by man was never seen; All our deep communing fails To remove the shadowy screen.
Heart to heart was never known; Mind with mind did never meet; We are columns left alone Of a temple once complete.
Like the stars that gem the sky, Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scattered lie; All is thus but starlight here.
What is social company, But the babbling summer stream? What our wise philosophy But the glancing of a dream?
Only when the sun of love Melts the scattered stars of thought, Only when we live above What the dim-eyed world hath taught,
Only when our souls are fed By the fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led Which they never drew from earth.
We, like parted drops of rain, Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorbed again, Melting, flowing into one.
Cranch's own title for this poem was "Enosis," not "Gnosis" as now given; "Enosis" being a Greek word meaning "all in one," which is illustrated by the last verse.
It was first published in the _Dial_ in 1844. "Stanzas" appeared at the head, and at the end was his initial, "C."
Three Years at Smith College--Appreciation of Its Founder--A Successful Lecture Tour--My Trip to Alaska.
"There is nothing so certain as the unexpected," and "if you fit yourself for the wall, you will be put in."
I was in danger of being spoiled by kindness in New York and the surrounding towns, if not in danger of a breakdown from constant activity, literary and social, with club interests and weekend visits at homes of delightful friends on the Hudson, when I was surprised and honoured by a call from President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, who invited me to take the position of teacher of English Literature at that college.