I gave my first series of talks at Tilden Seminary at West Lebanon, New Hampshire, only a few miles from Hanover.  President Asa D. Smith of Dartmouth came to hear two of them, and after I had given the whole series from Chaucer to Burns, he took them to Appleton & Company, the New York publishers, who were relatives of his, and surprised me by having them printed.

I give an unasked-for opinion by John G. Whittier: 

I spent a pleasant hour last evening over the charming little volume, Home Pictures of English Poets, which thou wast kind enough to send me, and which I hope is having a wide circulation as it deserves.  Its analysis of character and estimate of literary merit strike me as in the main correct.  Its racy, colloquial style, enlivened by anecdote and citation, makes it anything but a dull book.  It seems to me admirably adapted to supply a want in hearth and home.

I lectured next in various towns in New Hampshire and Vermont; as St. Johnsbury, where I was invited by Governor Fairbanks; Bath, New Hampshire, asked by Mrs. Johnson, a well-known writer on flowers and horticulture, a very entertaining woman.  At one town in Vermont I lectured at the large academy there—­not much opportunity for rest in such a building.  My room was just off the music room where duets were being executed, and a little further on girls were taking singing lessons, while a noisy little clock-ette on my bureau zigzagged out the rapid ticks.  At the evening meal I was expected to be agreeable, also after the lecture to meet and entertain a few friends.  When I at last retired that blatant clock made me so nervous that I placed it at first in the bureau drawer, where it sounded if possible louder than ever.  Then I rose and put it way back in a closet; no hope; at last I partially dressed and carried it the full length of the long hall, and laid it down to sleep on its side.  And I think that depressed it.  In the morning, a hasty breakfast, because a dozen or more girls were waiting at the door to ask me to write a “tasty sentiment” before I left, in their autograph albums, with my autograph of course, and “something of your own preferred, but at any rate characteristic.”

My trips to those various towns taught me to be more humble, and to admire the women I met, discovering how seriously they had studied, and how they made use of every opportunity.  I remember Somersworth, New Hampshire, and Burlington, Vermont.  I lectured twice at the Insane Asylum at Concord, New Hampshire, invited by Dr. Bancroft.  After giving my “newspaper wits” a former governor of Vermont came up to shake hands with me, saying frankly, “Miss Sanborn, your lecture was just about right for us lunatics.”  A former resident of Hanover, in a closed cell, greeted me the next morning as I passed, with a torrent of abuse, profanity, and obscenity.  She too evidently disliked my lecture.  Had an audience of lunatics also at the McLean Insane Asylum, Dr. Coles, Superintendent.