From collection Frances Willard Journal Transcripts
was best. A reformer must keep in touch with his cohorts& temperance, labor & the woman question-to have helped them onward but a little is greater than to have written what would probably have made haste to die.-a shout in the hall at 9 AM-Bess has heard from London by telephone that Nannie's ship is sighted off the Scilly islands. So we pack up & go to London & Bess to Southampton. How good is God!-And some day Mother will sight my ship bound for the land of Immortality!
November 30, 1893
Thanksgiving Day.
The dear true girls came at 10 by special train-Nan in good health heart & hope-mild voyage-everything encouraging-Rob on the upgrade once more-thank God! It is much to know the utter trustworthiness of anybody. It is the choicest thing in life & Love, which is the one supreme thing, involves trust as its real sure foundation. We went home to the beautiful cottage & had Thanksgiving Dinner-Cossie had arranged it-turkey, cranberry sauce, apple pie &c. Lovinia the cook had done her best. We sang dear Will Carleton's Thanksgiving Hymn from Anna's White Ribbon hymnal & (as my sister Mary said so long ago) "prayed thankful prayers." I sent a cable to Oliver's wife & children in Berlin "Remember auld lang syne." We all spoke of the happy Thanksgivings at home-so full of love & brightness & I thought of Mother most of all. In the evening Anna was serenaded by the Willard Y in Lady Henry's home & we played boo[.binder][?] & I had them all up in my room & the poor motherless things looked tenderly on my Mother's picture-a lovely new one from my Stevie-& we all said when they were gone "what a heavenly Thanksgiving! after all!"
December 1, 1393
Slept 9 hours, Nan & I & up & dressed early. A ride in the English mist-a bicycle ride-corrected proof of Mrs. J. L's leaflets, as I said, to Bess "with motives worthy of an archangel!"-Nan says TW[?] is like an electric wire"-"No" says
Bess, "she is an electric wire & the messages fly so fast that whoever can't keep up becomes a wreck a sticking out behind."They wanted all to be done & be read to but I said "it took so
long to read aloud"& then they made the foolish remarks above. I am glad indeed that Prof Terry of our university has shown forth the simplicity of Solomon's Song-mystics haveloaded it with meaning & misleading & dangerous fallacies & I am thankful to have shaken myself free-through the things I have suffered. Thank God for a common sense view of the Bible-at last. People who are not led by the nose will be better Christians than those of the past-spoon-fed on doctrines.
