MOTHERHOOD.

We found my sister Harriet in a new home in Clinton Place (Eighth Street), New York city, then considered so far up town that Mr. Eaton’s friends were continually asking him why he went so far away from the social center, though in a few months they followed him.  Here we passed a week.  I especially enjoyed seeing my little niece and nephew, the only grandchildren in the family.  The girl was the most beautiful child I ever saw, and the boy the most intelligent and amusing.  He was very fond of hearing me recite the poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes entitled “The Height of the Ridiculous,” which I did many times, but he always wanted to see the lines that almost killed the man with laughing.  He went around to a number of the bookstores one day and inquired for them.  I told him afterward they were never published; that when Mr. Holmes saw the effect on his servant he suppressed them, lest they should produce the same effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the Boston newspapers.  My explanation never satisfied him.  I told him he might write to Mr. Holmes, and ask the privilege of reading the original manuscript, if it still was or ever had been in existence.  As one of my grand-nephews was troubled in exactly the same way, I decided to appeal myself to Dr. Holmes for the enlightenment of this second generation.  So I wrote him the following letter, which he kindly answered, telling us that his “wretched man” was a myth like the heroes in “Mother Goose’s Melodies”: 

     “DEAR DR. HOLMES: 

“I have a little nephew to whom I often recite ’The Height of the Ridiculous,’ and he invariably asks for the lines that produced the fatal effect on your servant.  He visited most of the bookstores in New York city to find them, and nothing but your own word, I am sure, will ever convince him that the ‘wretched man’ is but a figment of your imagination.  I tried to satisfy him by saying you did not dare to publish the lines lest they should produce a similar effect on the typesetters, editors, and the readers of the Boston journals.

“However, he wishes me to ask you whether you kept a copy of the original manuscript, or could reproduce the lines with equal power.  If not too much trouble, please send me a few lines on this point, and greatly oblige,

     “Yours sincerely,

     “ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.”

     “MY DEAR MRS. STANTON: 

“I wish you would explain to your little nephew that the story of the poor fellow who almost died laughing was a kind of a dream of mine, and not a real thing that happened, any more than that an old woman ’lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn’t know what to do,’ or that Jack climbed the bean stalk and found the giant who lived at the top of it.  You can explain to him what is meant by imagination, and thus turn my youthful rhymes into a text for a discourse worthy of