I have no sympathy with the old idea that children owe parents a debt of gratitude for the simple fact of existence, generally conferred without thought and merely for their own pleasure.

How seldom we hear of any high or holy preparation for the office of parenthood! Here, in the most momentous act of life, all is left to chance.

Men and women, intelligent and prudent in all other directions, seem to exercise no forethought here, but hand down their individual and family idiosyncrasies in the most reckless mariner.
On November 13 the New York _Tribune_ announced the death of Lucretia Mott, eighty-eight years old.

Having known her in the flush of life, when all her faculties were at their zenith, and in the repose of age, when her powers began to wane, her withdrawal from among us seemed as beautiful and natural as the changing foliage, from summer to autumn, of some grand old oak I have watched and loved.
The arrival of Miss Anthony and Mrs.Gage, on November 20, banished all family matters from my mind.

What planning, now, for volumes, chapters, footnotes, margins, appendices, paper, and type; of engravings, title, preface, and introduction! I had never thought that the publication of a book required the consideration of such endless details.