From collection Frances Willard Journal Transcripts
trouble with Siam-fearful disasters in America-banks closing- Congress called &c.July 23, 1893Mother's last illness began, 1892.We read & wrote, drove to Realp-walked thence an hour through enchanting fields-I.S. routed an ant colony on a square boulder enamled with moss & flowers-we had tea in Realp-so sweet & clean a village. We read "Is death a delusion" by J. Hopps and enjoyed it greatly. My thoughts are greatly on the Future Life. "Here in the body pent" is a constantly recurring strain. Yet I seem to have improved much more than Lady Henry. She is thinning out-has sore throat-headache-not her worst form but dull-and I am "concerned." Little Nan wrote beautiful birthday letters about her new Spanish LTL formed on her birthday.July 24, 1893We read socialistic books of Bax & Schaffie[umlaut over a],-I like many of their ideas but detest the point-no-point of the former against Immortality. It is but a recoil from the two [FEW has this form] intense individualism of the past. The religion of Humanity will wreak itself in the next century & well it may- Christ is its Founder, Prophet and Exemplar. But as the German poet Hoffman said in his last hours "We must think of God also" aye & of the Endless Life! Isabel & I are Christian socialists- not pagan.-We climbed the alps above the town-visited what she calls "the Kindergarten" Catholic chapel, breathed the pure air and rejoiced. Mother's memory is ever with me. O where is she?July 25, 1893We wrote & read a while & went by carriage for [?] Oberalp. The scene was perfect-patches of fragrant meadow everywhere among the rocks & happy harvesters-men & women who live, not on the hillsides but in the villages near by. The flowers were exquisite & we, walking home down the mountains, gathered bouquets with which my beautiful prairies of the West might be proud to compete. Isabel rallied me not a little on my pained look when the hotel proprietess gave her flowers & me none. She said "It was like a child of 3" & that when she went anywhere with the Duchess (her sister) she was ignored in just this fashion."-I gathered snow flowers (imortelles) for my Mother's grave-I am thinking of her constantly in these anniversary days.July 26, 1893We walked to Hospenthal[,] rode to Realp-drove home. No end o' letters. Dear Nan is taking a bit of Switz. before she comes but will soon be here. Has had a nice visit with Alice. Turmoil &
