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Wiggin, Kate Douglas Smith, 1856-1923

"Marm Lisa"

There is the child who will write the novel that is
to stir men's hearts to nobler issues and incite them to better
deeds. There is the child (perhaps it is Nino) who will paint the
greatest picture or carve the greatest statue of the age; another who
will deliver his country in an hour of peril; another who will give
his life for a great principle; and another, born more of the spirit
than the flesh, who will live continually on the heights of moral
being, and, dying, draw men after him. It may be I shall preserve
one of these children to the race--who knows? It is a peg big enough
on which to hang a hope, for every child born into the world is a new
incarnate thought of God, an ever fresh and radiant possibility.'
Another day.--'Would I had the gift to capture Mrs. Grubb and put her
between the covers of a book!'
'It tickles Rhoda's fancy mightily that the Vague Lady (as we call
her) should take Lisa before the Commissioners of Lunacy! Rhoda says
that if she has an opportunity to talk freely with them, they will
inevitably jump at the conclusion that Lisa has brought HER for
examination, as she is so much the more irrational of the two! Rhoda
facetiously imagines a scene in which a reverend member of the body
takes Lisa aside and says solemnly, "My dear child, you have been
wise beyond your years in bringing us your guardian, and we cannot
allow her to be at large another day, lest she becomes suddenly
violent.


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