I have just finished Miss Peabody's account of Channing. I
have been more interested in Miss Peabody than in Channing, and have
felt how valuable she must have been to him. How many of Channing's
sermons were instigated by her questions! ... Miss Peabody must have
been very remarkable as a young woman to ask the questions which she
asked at twenty.
"April, 1881. The waste of flowers on Easter Sunday distressed me.
Something is due to the flowers themselves. They are massed together
like a bushel of corn, and look like red and white sugar-plums as seen
in a confectioner's window.
"A pillow of flowers is a monstrosity. A calla lily in a vase is a
beautiful creation; so is a single rose. But when the rose is crushed by
a pink on each side of it, and daisies crush the pinks, and azaleas
surround the daisies, there is no beauty and no fitness.
"The cathedral had no flowers.
"Aug. 22, 1882. We visited Whittier; we found him at lunch, but he soon
came into the parlor. He was very chatty, and seemed glad to see us.
Mrs. L. was with me, and Whittier was very ready to write in the album
which she brought with her, belonging to her adopted son. We drifted
upon theological subjects, and I asked Mr. Whittier if he thought that
we fell from a state of innocence; he replied that he thought we were
better than Adam and Eve, and if they fell, they 'fell up.'
"His faith seems to be unbounded in the goodness of God, and his belief
in moral accountability.
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