Page:Frances Wood Shimer 1826-1901.djvu/22

 how she sat at her desk and transacted business when she would clinch her hands or wound her lips to stifle expressions of pain, and attended to correspondence when she could not rise unaided from her chair, and when every breath was like a dagger in her side. One needs to know her shrinking from and extreme dread of malignant disease to understand the mental as well as the physical agony of those years, a suffering no less acute because uncommunicated. Just before going south the last time, a microscopical examination revealed that her disease was tuberculosis. Her life in the open air, her abstemious habits, her winters in the south, had stayed the progress of a disease no less serious than the one she feared. Also it was only her intimate acquaintances who knew her timidity and dread of publicity. She would endure almost beyond endurance rather than be the cynosure of curious eyes. She often remarked that the publicity of commencement time was more of an ordeal than all the business of a year. On account of this sensitiveness, pressure of business was an excuse to shrink more and more from publicity. Even when a frank, open explanation of facts and existing conditions would have vindicated beyond question her wisdom and good judgment, she suffered in silence rather than volunteer the statements. Neither did her retiring disposition seek public recognition and honors, though she possessed gifts and acquirements which would have been an ample endowment for highest honors. It was enough that she knew how to make it possible for others to be happier, wiser, better.

To her companions only she unveiled the softer charms of refined womanhood, the graces of sociability, the delights of conversation, the flash of repartee and wit. Though great in the sterner duties of life, she was even greater in womanliness. She never forgot a kindness, yet never held a grudge of cherished a spite. She was quick to resent an imposition, and equally prompt to atone for error. Unkind words, flung by heedless tongues, which had no ”remedy at law,” deeply wounded her; still she knew how to forgive as well as endure. If she were conscious of unjust treatment, the offender, in future dealings, was met with distrust, not by antagonism. She did not assume a cordiality she could not feel, for she was too free from hypocrisy to mask her real opinions with