The life of Naomi Norsworthy

THE LIFE OF
NAOMI NORSWORTHY

FRANCES CALDWELL HidGlNS

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The life of Naomi Norsworthv

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THE LIFE OF
NAOMI NORSWORTHY

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THE LIFE OF
NAOMI NORSWORTHY

BY

FRANCES CALDWELL HIGGINS

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1918

COPYRIOHT, I91S, BY FRANCBS CALDWXLL HI06INS
ALI. RIGHTS KBSSRVBD

Publithtd January iqiS

CONTENTS

Foreword by Dean James E. Russell vii

I. Introductory i

II. The Mother i8

III. The Early Years 39

IV. The Student Years S5

V. The Years at Teachers College . 71

VI. The Closing Years 103

VII. Characteristics 125

VIII. Some Attitudes and Beliefs . . .156

IX. Bits of Letters 175

X. Favorite Poems 214

XI. Memorial Service 227

Index 239

FOREWORD

How shall one tell the life-story of another?
The attempt is foredoomed to failure. Even if
it were possible to trace mechanically every ac-
tion to its source, it would take a lifetime to tell
the story. The author of this book is fortunate,
it seems to me, in that she has not sought to
write a detailed biography or make a sketch
or give a portrait of Naomi Norsworthy. It is
rather a tribute of a friend to a friend, with just
enough detail to show why that friendship was
close and reciprocal.

The most striking characteristic of Miss Nors-
worthy was her genius for friendship. No stu-
dent of hers, no casual acquaintance even, but
felt drawn to her as if by a magnet. Her attrac-
tion was enhanced by rare intellectual powers
and by her gift of logical exposition. But it was
not her intellect that brought her friends; it was
a boundless sympathy welling up from a heart
genuinely interested in others' welfare. She met
every advance more than halfway, and she gave
unstintingly of herself to all who sought her aid.

This ability to reach out to the other person,

viii FOREWORD

to interpret another's need, and to give sym-
pathetic assistance from a rich store of scholarly
attainments was what made her a great teacher.
She never taught to entertain; she made no
pretense of calling hard things easy or crooked
things straight. Master of herself through sys-
tematic discipline, she knew how to inspire
others to meet difficulties courageously. Her
standards of success were found in the perform-
ance of duty, and to these standards she held
both herself and her students.

There was withal in her something of the Pur-
itan. Her lovable nature, cheerful disposition,
and largeness of heart were tempered with a
natural reserve and controlled by a searching
conscience that often led her into conflict with
herself. In time of stress she needed a confes-
sor. The revelation of herself at such times dis-
closed the weakness of the woman and the
strength of the devotee. Had she been born in
another faith or in an earlier age, she might
have been the Mother Superior of a religious
order. As it was, she became a teacher, and,
faithfully following in the footsteps of the Mas-
ter, she spent herself that others might have life
and have it more abundantly.

James E. Russell.

THE LIFE OF
NAOMI NORSWORTHY

THE LIFE OF
NAOMI NORSWORTHY

INTRODUCTORY

No one knowing the radiant personality that
was Naomi Norsworthy will question the reason
for her life-history; none but will question the
possibility that words or portraiture can be
found to carry over that radiance and that per-
sonality in any satisfying way to others so un-
fortunate as never to have known her. Many
times since her death, hundreds have remarked
their desire for some written memorial that
might crystallize about her name an interpreta-
tion, however faint, of her life and its ideals,
wonderfully made manifest in her daily coming
and going. All of us have known the human
need of some tangible thing about which associa-
tions may gather; we desire to treasure keep-
sakes of those who have left us, to talk of them,
to hear others talk of them, to find in such

4 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

utterances confirmation and approval of our
own sense of values. To ignore the dead is un-
forgivable; we would remember, and in remem-
bering, find faint solace. She was too rare a
being for her life to pass unchronided, — a be-
lief so universally felt and expressed that it is
both justification and plea for this biography.

Let none think the undertaking has been
lightly entered upon. On the contrary, it has
been essayed with full knowledge of the impos-
sibility of ever depicting her as the vibrant,
life-giving thing she was. To attempt to re-
create any image of her would be but a mock-
ery, foredoomed, was not that attempt hal-
lowed by the hope of becoming an expression
that somehow may serve the high purpose of
thrilling into lasting being memories already
enshrined in hearts throughout this country.
Many lives she touched but faintly, hampered
by mutual limits of time and chance, and these
have not forgotten her; other lives she wrought
deeply upon, even to the changing of currents
and shores, and these have not forgotten her.
All have wished for an avenue of expression for
their vast regret for her too-soon end; they will
welcome pages that will help bring back memo-

INTRODUCTORY 5

ries and thoughts of her. The words of one la-
menting naessage, that came during the last
days of her fated suffering, said: "Hearts,
North, South, East, West, are praying for you,
remembering all you have been to them and
to that broader world where you have helped
them better to aspire." These hearts that,
knowing, loved her, and the things for which she
stood, who have desired some memorial in words,
however impotent, to bind together the simple
facts of her life in a lasting form, are the inspira-
tion of this record.

It is but fair to make clear in the beginning
the difficulties that beset the delineation. Two
obstacles especially to be considered are: first,
the lack of data concerning Dr. Norsworthy;
and second, the discouragement engendered by
a thousand assurances as to the insuperability
of the task of ever putting into form any just
idea of her personality. To these two difficulties
may be added a third, Miss Norsworthy's in-
stinctive distaste for publicity of any kind, a
fact which makes "the little of that little" on
record scarcely available for use. That there is
slight material to draw on for a biography is
not surprising to any one who knew her. She

6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

believed that nothing pertaining to herself could
matter; she minimized all she achieved, so that
there is less material concerning her than may-
be found about the ordinary person. Even
those exponents of the usual life commonly used
as biographic material, letters, are scarcely to
be had. It is not that they do not exist in scores,
for they do, but that they are so intimate and
peculiar to those persons to whom they were
written that a natural and proper reticence for-
bids their printing as wholes. She did much
public speaking, at religious gatherings, teach-
ers' conventions, and mothers' meetings, but al-
ways from the fewest possible notes. Who that
has heard her speak can forget the rapid utter-
ance, the quick mentality, and ready enthusi-
asm that characterized these talks ? Her method
was personal, the free exchange of intimate in-
tercourse; formal presentation in written speech
appealed to her not at all. The expressions of
her professional self that she felt constrained to
undertake on pressure from those friends and
advisers who thought her too good a leader not
to produce, the two books, the "Psychology of
Childhood" and "How to Teach," on which
she spent part of the last two or three years of

INTRODUCTORY 7

her life were destined to be thrown into final
shape by hands other than her own. In her
busy existence she wanted to leave behind no
ungathered scraps for others to clear away, and
in consequence there is slight testimony which
might serve to help set forth her life.

And what of the second obstacle, the dis-
couragement fostered by the attitude of those
who well knew her as to the hopelessness of
making alive any word-image ? If is oppressive.
This atmosphere of the impossible task is in-
tensified by the knowledge of her own shrink-
ing from analysis or observation. Granted that
achievement for adequate portraiture is not to
be, yet there may be wrought out an obscure
likeness that somehow, somewhere, may bring
back a fresher understanding of her contribution
to the world — a life wrought in harmony with
the higher spiritual laws of being. Her days
were more than a mere series of incidents; they
were records of deep spiritual experiences. By
virtue of such living, her worth was recognized
and her power made manifest. Not to see this
strength is to miss the essential fact; it is to
know naught of

"The Hills where her life rose,
And the Sea where it goes.".

8 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Miss Norsworthy was a person about whom
It was easy to be curious. Succeeding genera-
tions of students at Teachers College puzzled
over the secret of her personality, and found
great pleasure in comparing conclusions. Sev-
eral legends grew up around her name, none of
which, it is scarcely needful to say, is true.
"The mystery of a person," says Carlyle, "is
ever divine to him that hath a sense of the god-
like." It was the strong spiritual quality in
her that appealed provokingly to the univer-
sal "sense of the god-like" in others. "What
makes her like that?" "Did you ever see any
one just like her?" "What is the secret of her?"
were some of the ever-recurring questions asked
in the attempt to penetrate this mystery of the
divine in the human. Those nearest her might
smile patiently, — for had they not heard these
same questionings for years ? — and yet neither
time nor chance nor change could bring them
any nearer the reading of the riddle. Close
friends were as far from its solution as the
most remote. One can but wonder if there was
not mixed much of this spirit of curiosity, how-
ever unconscious, in the desire to crowd about
her, to draw from her. Who that knew her daily

INTRODUCTORY 9

life but knew the insatiate desire of friends and
acquaintances to be with her?

The mystery of a person is divine, as Carlyla
says, but mystery it remains. In a temperament
like Miss Norsworthy's, it is not only elusive;
it is also alluring. Wherein icould have lain the
secret of her power over human hearts? There,
is nothing subtle in the outward facts of her bi-
ography. The child of parents who had adopted
this country after their first youth had passed,
and who scarcely ever felt other than alien here;
thrust into the life of a great city, she had no
influential friends save of her own making, no
financial means save from her own striving.
Frail in reality no less than appearance, pro-
fessing no genius nor prowess of any kind,
scorning means of advancement that would
have been of mere seeming value, Naomi Nors-
worthy, by sheer weight of will and the purity
and power of her spiritual ideals, made for her-
self a distinguished place peculiarly her own in
the greatest professional school in America.

It may be said that at no time did Miss
Norsworthy hold a conspicuous position in her
profession. Her rank in Teachers College was
that of Associate Professor in Educational Psy-

10 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

chology, surely one unassuming enough. When
opportunities came for seeming advancement,
offers of posts of influence in other institutions,
she somehow could not put away the idea that
she belonged to Teachers College. She was much
in demand all over this country for talks on
child-study, demands she was indifferent about
meeting, largely because she felt her work suf-
fered from them. Her niche she felt to be there
in the daily round of duties and people in
Teachers College.

What made her the power that she was? The
iteration of the question is its only answer. All
knew her as a woman of great simplicity. She
had tastes notably feminine; she lacked one
kind of aggressiveness, a cause for reproach
among those of her friends who felt she should
be stirred to action on the score of Suffrage.
She was straightforward to a degree, frankly
unpretentious, fun-loving, full of the teasing
spirit of the child, and yet these attributes have
in them nothing of distinction, possessed as
they are by thousands of women who never
wake others by the inspiration of personal
charm. In such characteristics as these can be
found no reason why "Hearts, North, South,

INTRODUCTORY ii

East, West," should turn to her for inspiration.
It is trite to say there is no answer to the mys-
tery of such people. The secret must remain an
inescapable spur to the thoughts of all of us
who know them, children of the lavish gifts that
they are. With nothing of the zeal of the re-
former, or the mania of the enthusiast, Miss
Norsworthy professed complete assurance in
but one thing, the worth of the Pattern to which
her life was consecrated. She never in any re-
mote way knew her power over others ; she only
knew the fullness of her desire to meet others'
needs, to respond to them, to serve them, in all
humility. This attribute, her great desire for
consecrated service, helped to mould her into
the nobly great leader that she was.

Again and again has been remarked by hun-
dreds of those who studied under her how she
could put confidence into her students, imbuing
them with a new belief in their knowledge and
ability, filling them, seemingly, with something
of her own quick perceptions and powers of
expression. There was necromancy in it! Others
aspired to her aspirations for them, rose to levels
hitherto unknown to themselves. Her subtle
understanding and encouragement fused them-

12 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

selves through all reserve, or uncertainty, or
other hindering thing, and one spoke a new and
pleasant language. He had found himself!

There can be no question that the secret of
this revivifying power had its answer hidden as
effectively from Miss Norsworthy as from those
who were so curiously interested in it. All who
knew her acknowledged and gloried in this in-
spirational gift; to her it remained unknown.
Whenever any one was so bold as to refer to it,
the reference was met with a scornful denial of
the existence of this power in her. " It is n't so"
was the terse refutation with which she silenced
such comments about herself. Yet all who knew
her, however slightly, all who bitterly deplore
her loss to the world, have felt it and been grate-
ful for it.

A thought inexpressibly sad is that the tin-
gling charm of such a person is forever untrans-
latable. For those who did not know her there
can be little meaning in saying, "This she was."
For, after all, one can but despair of giving a
vital conception of what she really was. To no
other woman known to most of us can so justly
be applied Wordsworth's well-known character-
ization :

INTRODUCTORY 13

"A Spirit still, and briglit,
With something of an angel light."

Stress must be put on the fact of Miss Nors-
worthy's distaste for any form of publicity.
Reserve is not the correct name for what is here
referred to, strong though her reserve was; it
is a more fundamental, a less conscious thing.
To her eyes, the facts of her life, inward or out-
ward, were of no concern to herself or to others.
She never spoke of herself or her past. It is an
odd fact that incidents of her childhood and up-
growing, such as remain with most people ais
pleasant reminiscences to be smiled over and
recounted in the mellow light of the years, were
with her as blank as though they had never been.
This fact is, of course, the outcome of the habit-
ual minimizing of herself and all appertaining to
that self. She was in and of to-day; the past was
secure, the future to be met, but to-day was
hers, to be lived to its fullest. Her own past or
its ideas did not matter to her, and never were
they allowed to obtrude themselves between
her and those who cared to draw upon what
that past had made her. Neither objectively
nor subjectively was she interested in herself.
Every question from any source about her or

14 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

her past, what she liked or had done, never
failed to elicit the one answer: "Don't ask me;
I do not remember." Being pressed, she would
laugh off the questioner till he was forced to
believe she not only did not remember, but
did not care to. Her life did not know, seemed
never to have known, one moment of self-
centeredness or introspection. From her view-
point she had been brought to the passing mo-
ment happily, consciously filled with the deep
desire to make each second yield its fullest, be
it freighted with keen joy or crowning sorrow;'
and so occupied was she lest she should miss the
fullest of the present that the perspective seems
to have left slight impress. The attribute that
might casually be taken for personal reserve
was rather the lack of any serious taking-of-
herself; it was a perfect absence of all self-con-
sciousness, so rare a human quality that its
presence as a marked trait might of itself have
given to her character distinction.

Notably different from others, also, was the
way in which Miss Norsworthy accepted the
loving appreciation of the many who, realizing
her value, tried to find expression for that recog-
nition. It never seemed to occur to her that she

INTRODUCTORY 15

had such tributes of appreciation more often
than most people, certainly never that it was so
because she deserved them more. These count-
less evidences of the good-will and friendship of
others she considered but parts of a chorus by
which all knowing hearts swell the volume of
life's music, means employed by comrades to
cheer one another on the Open Road. Always
they made her very happy, because they whis-
pered of that spirit of comradeship. 1
A detailed study of Dr. Norsworthy's charac-
ter belongs rightly to a chapter other than an
introductory one, yet it seems but proper that
here in the beginning should be the stressing of
what, after all, was the keynote of that wonder-
ful life, — the vast prodigality with which she
gave of time, of strength, of self, of all she had
and was. Many times has been commented the
possibility that in this lavish spending might be
found a remote reason for her death at thirty-
nine. How royally she did give! With the full-
ness of morning, never reckoning on what wide
horizon might fall the richness, she poured out
her numbered days. When those who would
have had her spare herself, particularly during
the last years of her life, grew brave enough to

i6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

remonstrate over her serious lack of self-con-
sideration, her answer to all had the one burden,
"What does it matter? I shall not live to be old
anyway, and why not let me live while I can?
Each of us must find the way best for one's self,
and this is mine." How truly based was her
prophetic feeling as to the shortness of her life
was little dreamed by those nearest her who
could but grieve over her excessive prodigality.
There was something primitive in the waste-
fulness of this generosity. She was a sower who
scattered seeds lavishly, remembering, it may
be, how few of them are humanly destined for
fruitful soil. Never too tired, never too busy,
never too ill was she for a patient listening to all
the plans and troubles and aspirations brought
to her by a world of perplexed and weary people
who through her learned again their simple
faith in the possibility of perfect human sym-
pathy. This note of universality in her, so in-
tense and unfailing, endeared her to thousands
whom helping, she inspired.

It is evident that a character like Miss Nors-
worthy's has difficulties of delineation apart
from the eluslveness of its personal charm; she
was at once simple and complex, wholly sim-

INTRODUCTORY 17

pie in her lack of all consciousness or assump-
tion, and wholly complex in her vast responsive-
ness, in the ease with which she entered into
countless natures seemingly different from her
own. Her richness and depth and range vi-
brated constantly to the thousand lives about
her; and in every such person is a profundity
born not so much of reality as of circumstance.
There is an ideal of the ancient Greeks thus
expressed: "The man whose senses, imagina-
tion, and reason are unfolded in their highest
reach ; who has the keenest eye, the surest hand,
the truest ear, the richest voice; whose life
moves on in rhythmical accord with God, na-
ture, man, with no discord to break its monot-
ony and to be resolved in the harmony of its
peaceful and painless close: this is the ideal
being whose nature is unfolded without imper-
fection or sin to perpetual happiness and joy<"
Could a better description be found for her who
so "held the pass-key of hearts"?

II

THE MOTHER

An adequate understanding of Miss Nors-
worthy's life is scarcely possible unless due
prominence is given to the factor that her mother
was therein; so this chapter shall be devoted to
the mother, a woman no less unusual than the
daughter. Between them was intimate friend-
ship, a close kinship, but more of character than
of temperament. How very proud they were of
each other 1 Miss Norsworthy said " my mother "
in a tone that breathed an exultant note of joy
in a valued possession; she never failed to make
her mother known to any one whom she wished
especially ta honor.

Mrs. Norsworthy was the peculiar genius as
well as the undenied autocrat of her family
throughout her life. Her children could but feel
that they owed their all to her ambition and
forcefulness. She possessed the reticence, the
pride, the dogged persistence, and the indomit-
able 'pluck of your true Briton. That she was

THE MOTHER 19

English she never forgot, and she took pains to
live up to the finer traditions of her race.

Eve Ann Norsworthy, nee Modridge, was
born in Broadclyst, Devonshire, England, in
1844. Her father seems to have been fairly well-
to-do. She must have been a vigorous child, for
she was a woman of enduring physical pow-
ers. Miss Modridge was educated at a "young
ladies' seminary," the principal of which was the
maiden aunt of Mr. Norsworthy. Through this
aunt, she met her future husband while visiting
her former teacher at Torquay, the Norsworthy
family home. There is a romance wrapped up
in the court paid Miss Modridge by the two
nephews of her hostess, themselves first cousins.
Her choice fell on Samuel B. Norsworthy, a
young man of twenty-one, just through serving
his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer.
It was an unexpected bit of sentiment in one of
Mrs. Norsworthy's type when, in the last year
of her life, nearly seventy years old she was, she
surprised her daughter Naomi by pulling from
its hiding-place of fifty years a poem addressed
to her by the rejected lover, which no one else
had ever seen.
' Samuel B. Norsworthy came of Devonshire

20 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

stock that had produced in one of its branches
the great sea-rover, Admiral Drake. In the
good old English way he had been apprenticed
to a mechanical engineer to "learn by doing,"
This apprenticeship had just ended at the time
he became engaged to Miss Modridge, and being
anxious to establish himself independently, he
asked his mother for funds for working capital.
For some reason she did not accede promptly to
his request, though she had done for an older
brother as much as he asked. Mr. Norsworthy,
in a fit of pique at what he considered unjust
treatment, left home and struck forth into the
world. Coming to America, he lived for a time
in New York City, and then enlisted in the
United States Navy, serving for five years. At
the close of his enlistment, during which he had
cruised to the four corners of the world, he left
the navy and set .up in business in China, where
he stayed two years, and then returned to New
York. Naturally, in his years of naval service,
he had not progressed far towards accumulating
a competence that would have enabled him to
marry. At best, he seems on his own testimony
to have had little of the genius of accumulation
in him. AH his life he enjoyed spending money,

THE MOTHER 21

a trait hi§ daughter could very easily appreciate,
because she, too, had it. After he had been
away from England and hisi affianced eight
years, he crossed over in 1875, and they were
married.

h The eight years of his absence had been full of
change for Miss Modridge. Her father had died,
and the property had gone to the oldest child, a
brother, leaving her and her sister dependent on
their own efforts. The sister soon married, the
mother went to live with her, and the future
Mrs. Norsworthy accepted a position as gov-
erness, being recommended particularly for her
ability to teach French and music. How long
she was a governess is not clear, but the news
that her fiance's mother was very ill brought
to her one of those duties concerning which
throughout her life she knew no hesitation. She
gave up her means of support and went to live
with her mother-in-law to be. For two years
she devoted her life to caring for the elderly
woman. The invalid blessed her with the best
wish she knew: if the future Mrs. Norsworthy
should ever have a daughter, that she might be
to her mother the strength and comfort that Miss
Modridge had been to her. Mrs. Norsworthy

22 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

delighted to tell this reminiscence; she was sure
that the wonderful daughter that came later
to her was the fulfillment of this prayer of her
mother-in-law's. It is in this association with
her husband's people that the reason for the
name "Naomi" is to be found: "Thy people
shall be my people."

The older Mrs. Norsworthy must have been
herself a woman of "much force of character.
Certainly she had the power of inspiring de-
voted love and admiration in the young woman
who willingly ministered to her; more than this,
her ideals left so deep an impress on Miss Mod-
ridge that they became part of her life. She had
been reared a member of the Established Church
of England, and before going to live with Mrs.
Norsworthy, had subscribed to its tenets and
supposedly had been satisfied with them. Mrs.
Norsworthy was a Dissenter, one of the " Plym-
outh Brethren." This denomination came into
existence about the same time as Methodism,
and is far stronger in numbers and influence in
England than in this country. It is plainly a
tribute to the religious faith of the elder Mrs.
Norsworthy that her life and religion should
have impressed a person of Miss Modridge's

THE MOTHER 23

decided nature to the point of giving up the
creed of her fathers. Surely it cannot lightly be
said that the Church of England has a slight
hold on its members. There is that well-known
something in human creatures which once
habituated to a stately ritual is not satisfied
without it, a trait particularly strong in the
English, traditionally reverential as they are to
the past and its customs. That Miss Modridge
should put aside the form of worship her fathers
had known for generations to ally herself with
another bespeaks some experience commonly
called "conversion."

It Is not amiss to glance aside for a moment
at the doctrine of the Plymouth Brethren, for
undoubtedly it was an enormous power in Mrs.
Norsworthy's life, and through her, In Miss
Nofsworthy's. Briefly then: the Plymouth
Brethren believe in the literal interpretation of
the Bible and Its application to daily life. Their
organization and discipline are characterized by
extreme simplicity, having evidently much in
common with the Quaker faith. They await the
"moving of the spirit" in meeting, believe In
the leading of the "inner light," In a personal
God, and therefore in the supreme efficacy of

24 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

personal prayer. They are "pre-mlllennialists,"
which term interpreted by an outsider appears
to mean a belief in the Second Coming of Christ
when all true Christians will be translated hither,
and all non-Christians will be disavowed. The
Second Coming is at all times imminent, and be-
ing so, the individual must be ever on guard
lest he be found unworthily engaged. This doc-
trine, of course, is in broad terms closely akin to
the old Puritan ideas that left such ineradicable
marks on the history of our own New England.
It is "other-worldliness." Necessarily it pre-
cludes at once and unheard the temporary pleas-
ures of the passing moment.

Edmund Gosse, in his delightful biographi-
cal volume, "Father and Son," talks interest-
ingly of this sect, of no little influence in " those
days of the wide revival of Conscience." He
says: "They met only with a few extreme Cal-
vinists like themselves on terms of what may
almost be called negation, with no priest, no rit-
ual, no festivals, no ornament of any kind, noth-
ing but the Lord's Supper and the exposition of
Holy Scripture drawing these austere spirits into
any sort of cohesion. They called themselves
the 'Brethren' simply, a title enlarged by the

THE MOTHER 25

world outside into Plymouth Brethren. . . .
Pleasure was found nowhere but in the word of
God, and to the endless discussion of the Scrip-
tures each hurried when the day was over. . . .
The peculiarities of a family life founded upon
such principles are in relation to a little child
obvious. Here was perfect purity, perfect in-
trepidity, perfect negation; yet there was also
narrowness, isolation, an absence of perspective.
. . . My parents founded every action,,every at-
titude, upon their interpretation of the Scrip-
tures, and upon the guidance of Divine Will."
Of his mother, he says: "A Puritan in grain,
never a word escaped from her, nor a phrase to
suggest she had any privations." The char-
acterization might have been made of Miss
Norsworthy's mother. In this atmosphere of
"perfect purity, perfect intrepidity, perfect
negation," the sensitively endowed nature of
Naomi Norsworthy grew to its fine fruition.

Mrs. Norsworthy subscribed to the tenets of
the Brethren with the loyalty of an intense if
repressed nature. It was essentially In keeping
with her simplicity and directness that their
doctrine should meet with her belief and support.
During the years she lived in New Jersey where

26 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

those of this faith were few, she kept in close
touch with the little group with which she had
at once associated herself when she came to New
York from England.

At the time of their marriage, Mr. Norsworthy
gave to his bride the choice between living in
Japan, and in New York City. She told in after
years that her preference fell to New York for
the sole reason that it was nearer her beloved
England, and opportunity to go back there
would be less remote. She would add that
weighing against it, however, was the fact that
all the escaped criminals from England pro-
verbially made New York their place of refuge,
and she did not at all know what to expect of
her new home. She was married in 1875, and
came to New York in August of that year.

Mrs. Norsworthy must have been comely to
look upon at this time of life. She had brown
eyes that could bore deep; auburn hair that
never wholly lost its tint even at seventy years ;
a delicate complexion that flushed easily; a
mouth that showed decided firmness of will. The
figure was plump, and very erect; she showed
the training of the mid-Victorian by sitting bolt
upright in a chair, not leaning back at all, lest

THE MOTHER 27

she seemed to loll. As known to Miss Nors-
worthy's friends, she was a person of great
decision of will, pronounced opinions, unusual
capability, keen judgment, and no little formal-
ity of manner. One did not lightly presume
with Mrs. Norsworthy; one felt uneasy about
the "p's" and "q's," and wondered if one's hat
was on straight. Yet Mrs. Norsworthy was
most companionable, if never familiar. She
quietly prided herself on her strong likes and
dislikes. She must have been always a great
reader. She wrote with much ease, and her let-
ters were delightful, as are those of most English
people. Apparently there was slight sentiment
about her; she openly declared a distaste for
poetry, and had no patience with demonstra-
tions of personal feeling. Though cherishing
her English traditions and inheritance, she said
many times how truly glad she was that her
children had had the opportunities that Amer-
ica alone could give them.

In the family, her word was law. She brooked
no infractions of obedience, and saw that sum-
mary punishment fell on any violator of her edict.
Her way was quiet, positive, and most effective
with her children. She followed them up closely,

28 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

kept them secluded as few children are, and
either busy or interested. Miss Norsworthy
used to tell amusingly that one of the few recol-
lections of her childhood that remained was
connected with her violently slamming a door in
her mother's hearing, in a flash of temper, after
something had gone wrong; she said that there-
after when she wished to "let off steam" on in-
animate objects, she would go to her own room
and, behind carefully closed doors, open and
shut dresser-drawers with a bang, having taken
pains to assure herself that her mother was en-
tirely out of ear-shot. The punishment meted
out to the children was ordinarily a bread-and-
water diet, or staying in the house for a given
time, never corporal pain. The mother's vigi-
lance must have been constant. Neighbors*
children could come to play with hers, but they
must stay at home. This attitude was the out-
come partly of ideas of exclusiveness engendered
by her own English rearing, and partly of her
religious conviction. Their studies she super-
vised; it seems that early in their school life she
desisted in her efforts to help them with their
lessons, because her methods and those of their
teachers did not coincide. It was her practice to

THE MOTHER 29

keep in constant touch with their teachers, so
that she might know what studies the children
were weak in and needed to stress. No doubt
every teacher the children had would bear tes-
timony to Mrs. Norsworthy's solicitude about
their doing well in school.

Of Mrs. Norsworthy's will and thrift there is
abundant proof. When she and her husband
came to America, their little fund for beginning
life was put in a savings bank until they should
be ready to invest it; the bank failed soon after-
wards, as banks sometimes will, and the little
nest-egg was gone. Mr. Norsworthy's earnings
were not large, and they were both too proud
to call on their English relatives for assistance,
so there arose the necessity for continued econ-
omy in which Mrs. Norsworthy must have been
past master.

The oldest child died at the age of a few
weeks. The second child, Naomi, came, and
then two sons. With the increased demands of
three children, it was decided that it would
be best for the family to move to Orange, New
Jersey, whither they went in 1883, the husband
commuting to New York for his day's work.
For two years they lived in Orange, and then

30 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Mrs. Norsworthy determined to own her home.
As Rutherford was more accessible to the city
than Orange, therefore in better commuting
distance, to Rutherford she went to select a site.
So far as is known, she had no one to help her
in choosing this place. Mr. Norsworthy was too
occupied at his post of business to share with her
the responsibility. It has been remarked by
Rutherford friends what excellent acumen she
showed in the lot she bought. At that time, in
1885, Rutherford was scarcely more than a "lo-
cal habitation and a name," and she had no
guide at all save her own good sense. She walked
over the little village, considering the advan-
tages of a number of locations, and finally set-
tled on a spot on the crest of an elevation,
across the street from the Episcopal Church.
Did some haunting association with the church
of her childhood help her to decide? The place
is to-day considered, it is said, one of the most
admired and valuable in Rutherford. The next
necessity was to get the house built. She bought
the lot, settled on house-plans, contracted for
the building, and had ground broken in one
wefek, so her son tells. Be it remembered the en-
tire venture was undertaken on faith. She was a

THE MOTHER 31

stranger in the place, with no working capital,
her only financial backing being her husband's
earning capacity. Mr. Norsworthy evidently
belonged to that large number of husbands who
are willing to earn money and trust to their
wives for its wise expending. That he was will-
ing to do so was the best evidence of his belief
in her business sense. How she managed to pay
for this home no one knows; like many other
things she accomplished, she just did it.
fr Her thrift was backed up by her capableness.
She did beautiful work with her needle, making
all her own and the children's clothes. Indeed,
until the last year or two of her life, she took
much pride in continuing to make all Miss
Norsworthy's dresses, as well as her own, except
their suits and evening gowns. Her skill with
her needle must have been a great help in the
days when her children were small. She knitted
their winter stockings, mufflers, caps, and mit-
tens; she made elaborate trimmings and did
much fancy work of all kinds. Miss Norsworthy
never lost an opportunity to boast of who her
dressmaker was, and liking pretty clothes as she
did, she never lacked them in later years.
■ This busiest of women who^ on a scant in-

32 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

come, made a home and clothes for three chil-
dren, persistently supervising their work and
play, did not fail to answer every neighborly
call. It was before trained nurses were readily
to be had, and such capable women as she were
needed in homes of distress. One friend bears
testimony to Mrs. Norsworthy's helpfulness by
saying, " She did things for people utter stran-
gers to her that I would never do for my dearest
friend." Where need was, there she was. It is
said ' that sometimes she would actually incur
the risk of bodily hurt when she would try to
alleviate conditions in the homes of workmen
where drink had the upper hand. This minister-
ing to the needy was of course the religion that
she lived.

Mrs. Norsworthy kept open house in the good
old hospitable English way. There are instances
of whole families being gathered under her roof
for weeks at a time; sometimes it might be friends
or neighbors who were moving, and were tempo-
rarily out of a honie; again it might be stranded
ministers, or English people who drifted across
her path. No call of charity or chance for hospi-
tality went unheeded. It should not be forgot-
ten that these demands she met on a small in-

THE MOTHER 33

come that stretched little with the multiplied
needs. The admirable part is that no one ever
heard her complain, or worry over financial
affairs, either then or later. She was so excel-
lent a manager that her friends used to wonder
among themselves if she did not have help from
private and unknown sources. Her faith was
great enough to believe that a way would be
opened up, and the way always was opened.

Eight years were passed in the Rutherford
home. The place, made beautiful with many
flowers and fruit-trees, was excellently kept-
Then the time came for Naomi to go to normal
school, so she was to be away from home; the
two boys would soon need broader opportuni-
ties than the little town of commuters afforded,
therefore it seemed best to the mother to rent
the home in Rutherford and return to New
York. Naomi went to Trenton Normal, and
the boys were put into the city schpols.

The stimulation of the children appears to
have continued unflagging. Mrs. Norsworthy
resolved that they should have the best in edu-
cation, and bent her efforts steadily towards
that end. The father was anxious that the eld-
est son should serve an apprenticeship now that

34 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the boy was old enough, after the continental
fashion. The mother said no, that each child
should have an education first, in keeping with
the American idea. A constant watch was kept
for chances that might offer them opportunities.
She saw the advertisement of a competitive
examination for entrance to Webb's Academy,
an opportunity which meant training in marine
engineering. For that scholarship the eldest
son must try; to Webb's Academy he went. The
second son was next to be provided for. The
Pulitzer scholarshipi, valued at $1750, offered
seven years of secondary and college work. The
newspapers carried notices of the competitive
examination, which Mrs. Norsworthy hit upon.
Here was the opening for the other boy. It
meant for him the completion of courses at Hor-
ace Mann High School, and Columbia. He won
It. In 1897, the family moved back to Ruther-
ford for two years. In 1899, whenlthe daughter
was in Teachers College, and the younger son
in Horace Mann, Mrs. Norsworthy thought it
too much of a tax for them to continue commut-
ing, 80 the Rutherford home was sold and the
final move to New York made. It is gratifying
to think how Mrs. Norswi'orthy's deisiree and

THE MOTHER 35

plans for the education of her children were
successfully achieved. She saw all of them grad-
uated from Columbia University, the youngest
with a bachelor's degree in Mining Engineering,
the second with a master's in Civil Engineering,
and the oldest with a doctorate in Education.
Not many mothers have so great cause for pride
in motherhood as she had, or so well deserve it.
Mrs. Norsworthy was a methodical person
with painstaking ways of doing things. She
would not tolerate a maid, and all but the last
few years of her married life she did the work of
her own household, with the help of a laundress
only. Any sort of disorder or carelessness was
painful to her. Her energy for setting things
straight was inexhaustible. A hand-illumined
motto that hung on the walls of her bedroom
too well expresses some of her ideals to omit it:

The Beauty of the House
is Order;

. TJiff. Blessing of the Hcmsib
is Cgnteatcaent;

The Glory of the House,
is Hospitality;

The Crown of the House

is Godliness.

36 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Her fortitude and will stood forth the last
two years of her life. Approaching the allotted
threescore years and ten, she was apparently
very vigorous, destined to live years longer. She
entered happily into all Miss Norsworthy's in-
terests; she went on outings; twice, unaccom-
panied, she crossed the continent to see the
mining-engineer son, and was full of vivacity
and endurance. She would reject not too pa-
tiently any gratuitous attempts at assistance,
in coming up and down stairs for instance, let-
ting it be known that she cared to exercise none
of the usual prerogatives of age. Then came
all unexpectedly the fell disease that pronounced
her doom. Protesting against it, despite her
suffering, she consented to call a physician only
on Miss Norsworthy's insistence, to keep her
peace of mind. Life was a matter of months,
the doctor said; the trouble was carcinoma; the
case was quite hopeless. An appeal was made to
a great surgeon; without reservation or soften-
ing, he confirmed the previous diagnosis. After
he had left, Mrs. Norsworthy turned quietly
to the friend in the room and said without hesi-
tation or voice-tremor, "I am afraid this will
worry my little girl."

THE MOTHER 37

Miss Norsworthy made a hard fight for her
mother's life. She could not believe there was
no hope. Science, human intelligence, conquers
so many ills, why not this one? The most emi-
nent authorities were consulted; they gave no
encouragement. Radium had been successfully
used in some of these cases; it could be tried.
The book, then being written, everything else
but her mother, was forgotten. For the next
two years she was the center of interest and
anxiety. All efforts at relief proved useless. The
cost of the next two years was heavy on Miss
Norsworthy. The mother's bravery was won-
derful. In the suffering of these two years, in
which a major operation was tried, no complaint
came from her. She closed her lips and made
no moan. The end came September 23, 191 5.

There is no difficulty in seeing the kinship
between mother and daughter. Both had in-
domitable will, notable pluck, great endurance;
the lives of both were characterized by loyalty
to duty, independence of character, and inflex-
ible rectitude. The Spartan note, the austerity
of the mother, the daughter did not have; the
deep sympathy and personal charm of the
daughter the mother did not have. Tempera-

38 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

mentally they were not alike; but the capacity
for sacrifice, the desire for service, the devotion
to religious ideals, they shared in common.

"Mother and I are such good chums," Miss
Norsworthy would say. She made it a rule to
share intimately with her mother all her con-
cerns and interests, for the sake of counsel as
well as comradeship. Till the close of her own
life she bore in mind her mother's wishes; long
after most people would have abandoned the
maternal ideas as guides for immaturity only,
she had her pleasure in deferring to them. Many
people found cause for wondering comment in
Miss Norsworthy's seeming lack of interest in
the opera and theater, a fact which rendered
her almost a curiosity in this day and genera-
tion, but that in her eyes was fully justified
because of her mother's attitude towards these
diversions. She felt she could never render to
her mother any part of all she owed her, and
deference to her least wish was but slight trib-
ute. No one who realized in part the closeness
of the bond between the two could fail to under-
stand the grievous longing for her mother that
lingered with Miss Norsworthy the brief space
of time that stretched between the death of
her mother and her own.

Ill .

THE EARLY YEARS

Naomi Norsworthy, the child of parents
English by birth and American hy preference,
was born in New York City on September 29,
1877. The mother had at that time been in this
country for two years, but the death of her
first-born at the age of a few weeks had borne
heavily on her, and she had not tried to make
friends. Coincident with the advent of the
oldest child had come to her an association
whose persistence for over forty years bears
testimony to the possible loyalty of human
hearts. At one of the meetings of the few rep-
resentatives of the Plymouth Brethren in New
York City, Mrs. Norsworthy had met an Eng-
lish woman of sterling worth, also a newcomer,
who was casting about for a means of livelihood
in her new home. Mrs. Norsworthy, with ever-
ready and capable helpfulness, undertook to as-
sist her fellow countrywonian to self-support,
meantime characteristically offering her a home.
Becoming a member of the family in its daily

40 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

life for fifteen years while following her profes-
sion as a trained nurse, this friend played no
• small part in its annals. She was known to the
children as "Nina.'* What material help she
gave them is not recorded, but possessing many
fine traits in common with the mother whose
conservative judgments she reinforced, she was
a valuable member of the little group. Her
friendship is mentioned not only in simple jus-
tice, but also because she was one of the few
persons who came in close contact with the child
Naomi. Miss Norsworthy's devotion to her
was unwavering, a loyalty the more worthy of
comment because few of us but find it easy to
allow the associations of early years to be washed
away in "the swirl of spray and all that roar."
The two sons came. Necessity arose for the
exercise of all the financial skill and personal
efforts that the mother could command. Mrs.
Norsworthy's serious acceptance of the prob-
lems of motherhood, strengthened by her reli-
gious bias, could but leave its deep impress on
the three children. The boys were respectively
two and four years younger than Naomi, who
was taught that, being the oldest, she was to
be the exemplar. It was an attitude so blended

THE EARLY YEARS 41

with her life that she never cared to forget it
through the years. This fact was itself an aid
to the native contemplativeness of her disposi-
tion. Then, too, the mother's grief for the first-
born naturally made her spend upon this next
child the outpourings meant for two; from the
first, she must have set Naomi "on the level
of her soul." That such comradeship served to
make the child serious beyond her years is per-
haps to be regretted, but in this time was be-
gun the intimacy of mother and daughter that
persisted to the end, a source of strength and
happiness for them both.

From mere infancy, Naomi was taught to
believe what she should do, that she could do.
It was an up-bringing with the true Spartan
note in it. Certain tasks about the home were
set aside for her, and she was held to strict
accountability for them. After the school years
came, their number was lessened, and they
were largely confined to Saturdays, but never
remitted. Mrs. Norsworthy considered these
home duties an invaluable part of a girl's edu-
cation. The daughter became an expert needle-
woman, as well as an excellent housekeeper.
It must not have occurred to the mother that

42 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

she demanded of the child abilities different
from those expected of other children about
her. She had been reared in the school of
womanly accomplishments from her first years,
why should not her daughter be? Her systema-
tic, by-the-clock methods of work she impressed
on Naomi in a way never forgotten. The house-
hold training of the childhood years remained,
as well. One of the brothers says that in his
judgment the most remarkable thing about
his sister was her domesticity. With all her
intellectual interests, and the many demands
of her position, she managed to look after the
details of the housekeeping, when her mother
gave it up during the last few years of her life,
taking pleasure and pride in it.

The children were taught the Bible by strict
drill at home. On a favored occasion, one of
them was allowed to visit Sunday School with
a friend, and showed such excellent knowledge
of the Bible that the teacher asked, interest-
edly, "Where do you go to Sunday School.'"
and got the reply, "To my mother." A funny
little tale is told as the outcome of Naomi's
effort later to apply the careful and literal teach-
ings of the Scriptures she had received. When

THE EARLY YEARS ' 43

she entered school, a would-be play-fellow
made advances J to her, and was met by the
query, "Do you love God?" Naturally taken
aback by so direct a question as to her subjec-
tive state of mind, the little girl stammered con-
fusedly, "I don't know." Straight came the
rejoinder from the small Puritan, "Then I can't
play with you." She was trying to live the
admonition of the text, "Have no fellowship
with unbelievers." The primary-grader faith-
fully reported this incident to her mother on
arriving at home, and Mrs. Norsworthy, some-
what troubled thereby, confided to a friend
that she was not at all certain that her!; own
literal interpretation of the Bible was working
out wisely with her children. The friend who
tells this story says the immediate result of it
was to stimulate the mother to cultivate in the
children wider association with more "unbe-
lievers."

Another happening of childhood often told
by friends of these early years had to do with
Naomi's faith in prayer, at the age of six. It
was immediately after the family had moved
to Orange. A heavy blizzard in the night caused
Mrs. Norsworthy uneasiness as to the arrival

44 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

of the usual household supplies, so at breakfast
she told the children they could have only ce-
real, as she feared the baker could not make
his rounds. Later in the morning, Mrs. Nors-
worthy heard Naomi talking to herself, and
never having observed such a habit in the child,
curiosity prompted her to listen. Naomi was
pouring forth a petition that God would please
send bread before night, with the due perfect-
ness of a child's fervid faith. In the course of
the waning afternoon, the man living across the
street ploughed his difficult way through snow-
drifts to the Norsworthy door, with two loaves
of bread for his new neighbors, fearing, he said,
that they might not have enough for emergency
needs. Mrs. Norsworthy said that the child
looked at her triumphantly and exclaimed, "I
knew God would send us some bread," to the
amazement of the self-appointed messenger and
the relief of the mother, who had feared disap-
pointment for the child. The simple directness
of this faith Miss Norsworthy never outgrew.

Mrs. Norsworthy used to tell the little inci-
dent that first impressed her with Naomi's
swiftness of physical response. The children
had a dog, which was their inseparable com-

THE EARLY YEARS 4S

panion, a diminutive fox terrier, the cause of a
minor tragedy for Naomi later. One of the
small brothers, under the eager eye of the dog,
dropped a bag of peanuts, and though the
doggie was nearer him than Naomi was, and
made his hungry pounce with all the quickness
of his breed, the little girl was quicker, and
rescued the imperiled treasure from the eager
paws. The movement on her part was so in-
stantaneous that the mother said it was borne
in on her for the first time that her daughter
was more alert than the ordinary child. This
same dog was repeatedly the occasion of Na-
omi's exhibiting her characteristic pluck. He
must have been a fussy small dog, unduly given
to picking quarrels. Mrs. Norsworthy had finally
to forbid Naomi's interceding further in his
behalf. She would tackle anything that men-
aced the animal, regardless of danger to herself.
That there was slight difference in the ages
of the children was fortunate for the feminine
member of the trio. There is nothing but the
childhood memories of the brothers on which
to establish these early years, but it seems that
the boys set the pace and the girl followed. She
was not alone "little mother'! to them, but

46 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

good fellow as well. Her own interests naturally
took on the complexion of theirs, something
for which she often declared herself grateful.
Dolls she had given her, — does any girl escape
them? — but she said they possessed no attrac-
tion. Compared to the vigorous tastes and pur-
suits of her brothers, she thought she found
dolls too colorless. There is a satisfaction all
its own in jotting down the fact that as a
child Miss Norsworthy was considered a "tom-
boy." She was taught to box with her brothers;
she went on fishing jaunts with them; on tramps
searching Indian arrowheads; on long wood-
rambles; she climbed trees, wrestled, and seem-
ingly held her own pretty well as a "good
sport" with her brothers and their friends. The
hoydenish characteristic was so decided, indeed,
that her father's pet name for her was "Boy."
His invariable employment of the name in
speaking to her during her last illness caused
him to be asked for an explanation, and his
answer was, "I have called her that always; she
was such a tom-boy as a child." The one re-
maining nickname she ever possessed in the fam-
ily was another that brings a smile, "Sleepy."
This cognomen was the fun-poking one given

THE EARLY YEARS 47

her by her brothers, when, a little later In her
teens, the time came for day-dreams ; at first it
was "Trancy," because they said her musings
buried her so deep she seemed "in a trance,"
and then it grew to be "Sleepy." The very
incongruity of the two names, "Boy" and
"Sleepy," with all that one associates with her
maturer years, makes them worth recording.
The use of them persisted in the family till the
end.

Mrs. Norsworthy's determination to arouse
the children's desire to learn, and her efforts to
turn them into inquiring directions, have been
told. A method she employed for years was to
read to them every afternoon. Without varia^
tion they were required to come in at 5.30 and sit
about the dining-room table while the mother
read to them for an hour or more. Her choice of
books leaned towards travel and history. The
father's commuting from the city made necessary
a late dinner, for which the children were not
allowed to wait. When formal schooling began,
this routine was somewhat modified; there was
less reading aloud and more supervised study.
To the training of these years, particularly to the
type of books read, the mother always thought

48 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

could be attributed the success of the second
son in winning the Pulitzer scholarship. Cer-
tainly the mother's intelligent supervision and
insistent demand for concentration on their
studies left its mark on all three children. In
the light of the needs of the after-development
of Naomi, it would seem that Mrs. Norsworthy's
ideas of secluding them was an error. However
well-hidden was Miss Norsworthy's timidity in
her grown-up years, all who knew her real-
ized what it made her suffer, and this natural
timidity had been intensified, necessarily, by
the seclusion of her childhood. It is easy to
pardon this mistake on the mother's part on
the score of zeal of interest and ambition; nor
is the fervor of her religious conviction ever to
be forgotten. She wished to meet without eva-
sion the responsibilities of motherhood in see-
ing that her children were successfully guarded
from untoward influences or unworthy occu-
pations. However their seclusion may have
from one viewpoint cut them off from unre-
strained association with other children, and
therefore from social activities considered nor-
mal, there can be no doubt that the atmosphere
thus created furnished an excellent one for the

THE EARLY YEARS 49

burgeoning of individuality. There is that in
the daily round of life of the little brood which
inevitably reminds one of the Bronte family.
In that case, the inflexible and controlling fac-
tor was the father instead of the mother; but
in the exclusion, the adult direction, the inven-
tive need of self-entertainment and effort, the
repression, and yet the highly individual charac-
terization of the two groups, there is much in
common.

'■ With the beginning of school came new and
broader influences. The brooding ambition of
the mother was shown in the intense interest
she took in the daily progress of each child at
school. It has been told how she conferred often
with their teachers, discovered the weaknesses
of the children and where to direct their efforts
and hers. It is said no lapse or deficiency on
the part of any one of them failed to call forth,
her deep concern and redoubled efforts. All
three children were lamentably poor spellers;
they were put to work on spelling with the
energy and persistence characteristic of the
mother, with the result that two of the three be-
came creditable spellers. Music lessons began for
Naomi at the same time with formal schooling.

50 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Her mother gave her lessons, and later she had
another teacher. One of the first objects at-
tained in after years, when she began to teach,
and had money for her own spending, was the
purchase of a piano, which for a time she greatly
enjoyed. This fact bears further testimony to
the range of her tastes and abilities, and for
that reason is worth a reference. Her musical
talents were swallowed up later by other in-
terests, but music remained with poetry, a hid-
den and major love.

Miss Norsworthy often remarked that the
most distinct memory of her childhood was that
everything in it turned on her resolve to be a
teacher; that she could not recall a time when
it was not the strongest desire in her, and that
her one dread was that she would never know
enough to reach her aim! Always self-distrust-
ful, her lack of confidence no doubt served
to multiply her efforts. The teachers of! these
first school years say she "worked for what she
got." The query naturally comes whether this
was true because of anxiety lest she should not
be able "to learn enough to be a teacher," or
because of extreme conscientiousness and thor-
oughness. It is not easy to think of her, even

THE EARLY YEARS 51

as a child, as a mental plodder. Thus, however,
the testimony of the teacher of the early years
runs. Her mother's excessive desire for her pre-
eminence probably acted as an extra spur; there
can be no doubt that in these years of "work-
ing for what she got" was laid the foundation
of habits of concentration that stood her in
such good stead in later times.

Mrs. Norsworthy's hope in choosing New
York as a place of residence that she might find
more opportunities to visit her beloved England
was not to be disappointed. Her accomplish-
ment of this end is another cause for wonder
that ranges with her success in buying her home.
Several trips across she made with the children,
and England was a garden of happy memories
for them all. It was her custom to pay them,
between these visits, regular wages for certain
of the household chores, thus nominally en-
couraging them to pay for their passage in that
way. The chief anticipative glee of the two
brothers in these ocean-jaunts was in talking
about how seasick Naomi was going to be, and
she never disappointed their expectations.

During the early childhood years there was
no hint of physical weakness. It is said that

52 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

fifteen years passed without the presence of a
physician in the house. One day when wrestling
with one of the brothers, Naomi had a hard fall
and complained afterward of her hip; it was
then that the doctor discovered unevenness In
the limbs. Heroic treatment was advised; a
heavy weight was to be attached to the knee
and suspended on a pulley from the foot of the
bed at night. How long this treatment was kept
up is not known, but for months. Her ankles
had always been weak, but not painful, neces-
sitating the wearing of braces ; this defect had
barred her from skating, a deprivation she
never ceased to bewail. The handicap of weak
ankles, though, Is the only one she seems to have
felt until the hip trouble was discovered. The
very strength of her nervous energy may have
driven her on over a constitutional frailty that
would have hampered many a child. It is true
that from infancy she was not a good sleeper;
here again the nervous physlcality, but the tend-
ency to insomnia wore off in later years, possi-
bly routed by sheer physical exhaustion.

The early years spent in the little towns of
Orange and Rutherford without doubt left
their indelible markings on Miss Norsworthy's

THE EARLY YEARS 53

impressionable nature. It was an uneventful
childhood, quite commonplace in many ways,
yet in it may be found the seeds of the later
fruition of character and temperament dis-
tinctively hers. A sense of responsibility, ideals
of thoroughness and order^ singleness of pur-
pose, and the formation of intellectual habits
had all been inculcated by the mother. The
healthy give-and-take of two brothers had
happily offset any over-delicate tendency of a
nature so sensitive. The free life of a country
town had brought to her certain view-points
that were invaluable. Familiarity with field
and wood and their citizens remained there-
after among her most treasured knowledge.
She had a surprising acquaintance with wild
things. Birds and trees and native flowers had
their haunting memories. The stars, too, were
among the persisting loves of childhood; study
of the constellations had been one of the many
interests of her mother's "round-table" read-
ings, and with the seasons' cycles, in the
crowded city, she would watch for their suc-
cessive returns. She often spoke of the time
she "lived in a house" in contrast to the years
in a New York apartment, and always she

54 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

accounted herself, lucky to have known the
freedom of the open. In her were elemental
things in harmony with nature, and these years
of childhood were indeed blessed in having
placed her where they could be nurtured. The
resurgent life of every springtime called insis-
tently to her, and the Easter holidays never
failed to find her answering; the jeweled panoply
of autumn caused in her delight only a lover
can know. The odor of pines, or any other
breath of forest or field would bring the light to
her eyes and excited exclamations to her lips.
The sea was a passion; of it she never tired.
These innate joys had their roots in the life of
the early years; without them would have been
subtracted much from the residual interests that
remained with her as abiding joys. ,

IV

THE STUDENT YEARS

Some one has said about Mrs. Norsworthy's
well-thought-out plans for her children's school
years, "It is the sort of thing every mother
might be expected to do for her children, but
that every mother does n't." The discussions
and the firmly established habits of concentra-
tion and study stood the children well in hand
when they began to attend school. They had
been taught to read; their drill in reading and
memorizing texts from the Bible even in the
early years had been thorough. The mother
had required undivided attention to her read-
ing aloud and had had them reproduce in their
own words what she read. Their talks on books
read together had stimulated their interests
and imagination so that they were more cap-
able of long sustained attention than most
young children. Steady insistence on the need
for self-reliance and independence, imposed in
terms of home duties as well as in words, had
developed them. Their first teachers speak of

S6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

their quiet obedience, ready responses, quick
intelligence, and their "infinite capacity for
taking pains."

Naomi began school after the family moved
to Rutherford at the age of eight. She must
have been a quaint little person. There is a
picture of the family group taken at this time
which is interesting. Both mother and children
are decidedly English in dress, necessarily so,
since Mrs. Norsworthy made her own and the
children's clothes; and she was still far too loyal
to the traditions of her up-bringing to discard
English styles. Mrs. Norsworthy is shown sit-
ting in her characteristic erect fashion, straight-
browed, firm-lipped; Naomi stands beside her, a
demure little girl, with wide-open, wondering
eyes, hair brushed straight back from a beauti-
ful brow, and hands that even then showed
the nervous restlessness always associated with
them. f

The teachers of Naomi's first years in school
speak of her as being different from most chil-
dren in her sense of responsibility, her old-
fashioned ways, and her odd little dresses. They
say she was dependable and ambitious beyond
her years. A noticeable trait was her desire to

THE STUDENT YEARS 57

protect anything or anybody weaker than she
was, about whom she might throw a shielding
arm. They comment, too, on her surprising
knowledge of the Bible, not realizing what faith-
ful training she had had in the daily reciting at
home of Scripture texts. % >

These years in elementary school are the ones
during which it is said she "worked for what
she got." There can be no doubt that thus
early her ambition was afire. She felt even at
this tender age the responsibility of doing well
in school that she might some day become a
teacher, just as she also felt the responsibility
of being the oldest child. Truly not for naught
had she from babyhood been let Into the con-
fidence of her mother. The happenings of
every day, no matter how small, she brought
home and shared with this mother to whom
nothing that had concerned or interested the
little child was ever trivial. This companion-
ship in itself was an added spur to her ambi-
tion. She wished to achieve the triumphs of
her little world that she might make her mother
happy in sharing them with her. It has been
remarked, possibly with cause, that Mrs. Nors-
worthy did not realize the steady pressure she

58 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

put on this keenly strung child of whom she
was so justly proud at all times. The daughter
never realized it, either then or later; she tried
only to meet it.

Through the primary and grammar school
days she was this child of panting ambition,
of great gentleness, and of lively imagination,
a little creature eager for all knowledge, never
weary of working for the coveted goal, nor
easily turned aside from it. It is the type of
child that will, of course, always stand well in
school, regardless of the teachers that come
and go. The school reports of these years show
Naomi's marks highest in mathematics and
history, and lowest in spelling and penmanship.

One of her elementary teachers tells an in-
teresting anecdote concerning her at the age
of ten. Naomi handed in a composition that
her teacher commended as being an unusually
good one, but she remonstrated about the great
number of misspelled words it contained. The
words were duly underscored, and Naomi was
told to re-write the composition with the words
correctly spelled. On seeing the defaced com-
position, and learning that she was to write it
over merely because of incorrect spelling, she

THE STUDENT YEARS 59

flared up in a bit of a temper: "I thought this
was a composition, not a spelling lesson. What
difference does it make how the words are
spelled?"

The Rutherford school at this time had no
high school, and Naomi completed its work in
1893, at the age of fifteen, standing first in her
class. ,A few weeks before the time for the close
of the school year, the family moved back to
New York, leaving her in Rutherford with a
friend of her mother's, who speaks apprecia-
tively of how companionable she found this girl
of fifteen. Her repose of manner and range of
interests are said to have been unusual for her
age, both of which traits she owed to her mother
rather than to her training in school. As a
matter of fact, she often spoke laughingly of
the "gaps" in her education. The lack of those
studies usually pursued in high school necessa-
rily placed her subsequently at a disadvantage.
She had no work in Latin, little in history
and modern languages, and indeed, inadequate
preparation in mathematics and science for
her succeeding needs. This fact subjected her
to a sense of inequality in normal school, and
later in college, but it called into play the

6o . , NAOMI NORSWORTHY

splendid concentration of which she was so
capable. It served to restrict her activities
and friendships during her normal school years
far beyond what they should have been. Her
rearing in the strict terms of her mother's
evangelical faith would of itself have cut her
off from much of the girlish frivolity to be ex-
pected during this period, but she need not
have been so bound to the grind of her studies
as she was by this inadequate preparation. It
was the one regret she was ever known to voice
over her school days, that she had been com-
pelled to devote herself so assiduously to her
studies as to lessen her human companion-
ships.

The fall of 1893, before her sixteenth birth-
day, she entered the New Jersey State Normal
at Trenton. The students were older than she
was, and with very few exceptions, better
prepared. Her intellectual pride was aroused
as never before. These are the student days to
whose effort and concentration her roommate
of the time pays such ready tribute. She was
entering normal at an age when she should have
been in high school. Accustomed always to
leading the front ranks in school, she felt the

THE STUDENT YEARS 6i

handicap of being in classes with young women
her superiors in years and training, and it stung
her that they seemed able to accomplish their
tasks much more easily and successfully than she
could. She was far from the physical strength
that should have been hers to call upon for
heavy mental effort. It was the year before that
the painful fall had brought to light the dis-
crepancy in the hips. She was still under the
doctor's orders to weight down the limb with
the attachment suspended at night from the
knee. The process would doubtless be pain-
ful enough for any one, and for a person of
her nervous sensibility, a poor sleeper at best,
it must have been the keenest torture. The
pain was so great that she could not sleep,
and though her roommate exhausted her argu-
ments trying to persuade her to discard the
appliance, the child would not allow herself
to do so until her lessons began to suffer seri-
ously; even then, she waited to write home for
her mother's permission to discontinue the use
of it. Another annoyance was her throat, which
troubled her constantly. There were several
attacks of quinsy, and finally the tonsils were
removed. The constant application to her

62 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

studies ieft little time for recreation, and there
is testimony of moments of utter physical ex-
haustion during the years at Trenton.

Her scholastic record, however, shows no
evidence of this physical weakness. One of her
teachers of this period says of her: "It took
some time to individualize her, for she was very
quiet in her manner and shy about voluntary
work at first. After a while, I found that the
little dark-eyed student was always prepared;
no matter who else had come with surface
preparation, or had 'forgotten,' her work was
always thorough, and her memory was to be
depended upon. Her attention was unflagging.
Later I discovered that she bad a perfect pas-
sion for clearness; question after question per-
sistently followed, until she could say with a
wonderful brightening of the whole face, ' That
is quite clear now.' I was presenting psychology
from the genetic standpoint, and frequently had
the feeling that I was meeting in her mind a
body of views which conflicted with my own.
I realized how much was — for her — too firmly
settled to admit of question. At that time she
had no idea of specializing in psychology."
V Another of her normal school teachers says:

THE STUDENT YEARS 63

"Miss Norsworthy was very frail when at Tren-
ton, and most ambitious. She had no difficulty
in acquiring high marks, for her work all came
very easily. She made no intimate friends,
though the girls all respected her, and called
upon her readily for help. Her religion pre-
vented her entering into their gayeties or join-
ing their societies, and too, she needed to seek
rest and quiet often, for young as she was, she
was often sadly exhausted. She always dressed
simply, and her clothes were often quaint, mak-
ing her all the more charming in appearance.
Her mother made them and, in her eyes, that
was enough; no one else could make clothes
to suit her. Her memory was wonderful. On
class-day, she had more than a hundred memen-
toes to give to different members of her class,
and she insisted on doing it without notes. She
did not forget a line."

Yet another of her instructors of these Tren-
ton days says: "Hers was a rarely intellectual
and modest personality. Though unusually reti-
cent in expressing her opinion, we soon discov-
ered that this slight girl was to be our greatest
aid in working out a problem. I said to my-
self, 'Naomi Norsworthy has a mind like run-

64 NAOMI NORSWORTHY '

ning water, the clearest I have met in this work,'
and this opinion was never changed. She was
so young, barely sixteen, and her youth, with
her clear sweet voice and diffidence of manner
gave her more charm. She was even then a
mature thinker." And another: "It became a
common saying among her instructors, 'If you
want the summary of a lesson that will be worth
preserving, call upon Naomi Norsworthy.' Not
only in those respects by which we commonly
characterize the student was she unusual, but
the modesty and simplicity of the girl were
never lost in the maturity of thought and ex-
pression of the woman. Her great success as a
teacher was the logical outcome of what she
was as a student."

One of the Trenton classmates remembers
through the intervening years the impression
made on hfer by Miss Norsworthy's quick men-
tality in connection with^ this incident: the
physics professor had not covered the work
he had hoped to accomplish, therefore the last
lesson before examination he announced that
he would go rapidly over the omitted principle
in the hope that some in the class might com-
prehend it; most of them were utterly at sea

THE STUDENT YEARS 6;

after this flying presentation, but Naomi Nors-
worthy had the principle entirely clear.

Illustrative of that persistence with which
she invariably followed any end once under-
taken is a memory told of these school days.
Coming home to Rutherford for a week-end,
Miss Norsworthy's expectation of returning to
Trenton in time for her duties the following
Monday was upset by a terrific snowstorm.
All traffic had to be suspended. She would
not listen to the protestations of the faijiily on
her attempting to return to Trenton, but don-
ning coat and hat, she seated herself by the
window so that she might hail any driver ad-
venturous enough to fare forth, no matter if
his vehicle might be delivery wagon or humble
cart. She sat there all day long, unrewarded.
But for her mother's positive forbidding, she
would have set out to walk to the station. Her
brothers long delighted in teasingly reminding
her of this lengthy wait as abiding proof of her
inborn stubbornness.

These three years at Trenton could have had
in them for Miss Norsworthy' little of the ex-
periences that are usually known and should be
known to a girl's later teens. From full en-

66 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

trance into the pleasures and interests of her
school friends she was barred by her religious
convictions. We see the devotion to the ideal
of service, however, that so glorified her whole
life. She came for the first time into close con-
tact with people outside the shelter of the
home and the circle of friends chosen by her
mother; for the first time she was called upon
to stand by her principles without the support
of her mother's daily encouragement. In her
teachers she found warm and abiding friends;
though the years were overcrowded with efforts
to make up deficiencies in her previous train-
ing, and the full days were hampered by ill
health, yet she looked back upon her Trenton
associations with keen pleasure.

Normal training was intended only as a step-
ping stone to an immediate teaching position,
so that, by becoming self-supporting as soon as
possible, Miss Norsworthy might work for a
purpose long in view, — better preparation for
her professional career through training at
Teachers ODllege. Just as she could not re-
member when she did not intend to become a
teacher, she said, neither could she remember
when she first determined to go to Teachers

THE STUDENT YEARS 67

College. On graduating from Trenton Normal
in 1896, not yet nineteen, she was the first mem-
ber of her class to receive a teaching appoint-
ment. The post was in, the public schools of
Morristown, New Jersey, as teacher of a third-
grade class. The three succeeding years in
Morristown she always thought of as part of
her professional training. Here, too, was felt
the charm and strength of her, despite her
youth. Practically her entire free time was
devoted to filling in the "gaps" in her educa-
tion so that she might enter Teachers College.

In the fall of 1899, Miss Norsworthy ma-
triculated in Teachers College. It was her in-
tention when she entered to specialize in chem-
istry, a branch of science which had always
particularly attracted her. The discerning judg-
ment of the head of the psychology department
at once singled her out as a young woman
of unusual mentality, and it was under his en-
couragement that all ideas of being a teacher
of chemistry vanished. The first paper she
wrote for his class favorably attracted his at-
tention. On returning it, he read her name from
the back, "Naomi Norsworthy," in accents
that she always afterwards insisted were the

68 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

most sepulchral she had ever heard, and asked
the writer to remain for a moment after class;
from that day her subject for specialization be-
came psychology. She never failed to testify
to her gratitude for the inspiration given her
by this man of science, and for his direction
of her interest to the field of psychology. Of
her early days at Teachers College he says:
"She was a member of my first classes, and
though quiet at that time, impressed me early
as a girl of excellent judgment and strong hu-
man devotion. She was made a student assistant
the following year. Dr. Norsworthy as a stu-
dent was quieter than later. Though always
interested and wide awake, she was not spe-
cially prominent in class discussions or the like.
She had a deep interest in psychology as a stu-
dent as well as a teacher, and resisted later the
efforts of those who tried to direct her into exec-
utive and administrative work. She was also
then as always extremely conscientious. In very
many ways she was like her mother. It was
from her that the children had their intellec?-
tual abilities and general sagacity, I think."

On being made student-assistant in the
department of psychology in 1900, the year

THE STUDENT YEARS 69

following her entrance into Teachers College,
Miss Norsworthy began the long term of serv-
ice, catalogued and uncatalogued, that lasted
sixteen full years. She made it her concern to
seek out students with difficulties and bend all
her efforts to helping them strengthen them-
selves. Here began the practice of giving all
her open time to others, little though it was,
even then. She was determined to spare her
mother so far as she could, and began to look
after the household affairs more than she had
done. Before going to Teachers College each
morning, she prepared her own and her moth-
er's breakfast, served her mother's to her in
bed, and set the apartment in order. In the
afternoon she hurried home to help with the
preparation of dinner. The household duties as-
sumed at this time she never gave over, and,
not sharing her mother's distaste for servants,
in later years she was wise enough to keep a
maid.

Miss Norsworthy received the degree of
Bachelor of Science from Teachers College in
1901, and at once she began to work for her
doctorate, having received an appointment as
assistant in psychology. Her small physical

70 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

strength annoyed her persistently. Teaching,
coaching weak students, studying, working dili-
gently on a thesis, and keeping house are duties
large enough for the best of us, however physi-
cally fit. There were operations that came in
these years, but she seems to have been too
busy to pay much heed to them. Her thesis,
"The Psychology of Mentally Deficient Chil-
dren," entailed a vast amount of work, as all
familiar with it know. It necessitated her visit-
ing several institutions for mentally defective
children for months at a time, and keeping
some of the inmates under constant observa-
tion. In 1904 she received the degree of Doctor
of Philosophy, and her formal student years were
ended.

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE

No other phase of Miss Norsworthy's life
presents the difficulty in delineation that her
work as a teacher does. Her power here all but
defies analysis. One cannot tell how she did
it, but only what she did. Teaching was with
her a very unusual gift; she possessed an apti-
tude for getting hold of people's minds and
firing their interests with her exhaustless mag-
netism so that the hours in her classes were
looked forward to with pleasurable anticipation,
often with delight. Her teaching had in it
a large social element that robbed a recitation
or lecture of every vestige of humdrumness.
Details that in hands less skillful than hers
would be surrounded by dust from the rattling
of dry bones took on color and light from the
lambent fire of her personality. Her common-
sense illustrations, clear exposition, with now and
then a flash of humor, together with her ques-
tions and comments so stimulated the student's
mind that it worked better than at other

72 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

times. For her, "being a teacher" was not a
business; it was a joy.

Her official connection with Teachers Col-
lege began in 1901, when she was made assist-
ant in psychology; 1902-04, she served as tutor;
1904 to 1909, as instructor; in 1909, she was
made associate professor.

It will scarcely be wrong to say that her
aim as a teacher rested broadly on two general
principles; first, the desire to know her sub-
ject masterfully, and second, the determination
through sympathetic insight to arouse the in-
dividual members of her classes each to make
his contribution to the discussions in order that
the points covered might be broader and better
suited to serve the definite needs of the many.
She seldom gave lectjares, and the few that she
did give could hardly be called formal. " I must
know what is in the minds of my students, and
the general trend of their needs and interests
before I can get anywhfere," she used to say.
The way in which she conducted her classes was
peculiarly her own. One young woman who pre-
viously had been a student of Miss Norsworthy's
determined to catch the trick of her teaching,
and haunted her classroom for a whole term,

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 73

taking down notes and observing diligently; at
the end of the time she gave up, convinced, she
said, that the laws of genius in teaching work
as indirectly and without visible means as in
other lines of endeavor. The one definite con-
clusion she reached seemed to be that Miss
Noirsworthy never antagonized; her character-
istic phrase, "Would you be willing to grant
that — ," being firmly implanted in the ob-
server's consciousness as a leading principle of
her procedure.

It was her habit to begin the work of the hour
with a rapid, clear-cut summary of that of the
preceding time, such a summary as few teachers
can give, which threw into high relief all the
valuable points previously made. There fol-
lowed a few illuminating suggestions concern-
ing the day's subject, and discussion began.
It is useless to attempt to tell the how of the
consummately skillful way in which she guided
it so that "the timid were emboldened to take
part, the hazy thinkers were led to clear ex-
pression, the belligerent were rendered willing
to compromise, and the stubborn were allowed
to convince themselves of the opposite view,"
as has been excellently said. Her power as a

74 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

teacher was part of the gift of her personality.
As the musician knows his instrument, she
knew her classes, and played upon them. Her
abounding sympathy and incisive intellect gave
her quick access to the minds of her students,
and they responded. "The only times in my
life that I ever felt that I was mentally gifted
were the moments that I spent in Dr. Nors-
worthy's class," said one of her students. "I
never understood how it happened, but some-
how it seemed that what she knew was flashed
into my mind and before I knew it, I would be
talking fluently, eloquently it sounded to my
own ears, about some subject that I had hitherto
had only the mistiest conception of." This ex-
pression voices what was widely felt by her
students, that in the class discussions they
seemed impenetrated by somewhat of Miss
Norsworthy's own knowledge and brilliance.
Among the greatest of her gifts was this ability
to make one feel himself to be a bigger person
than he had hitherto thought.

Few of her students can easily forget the fer-
tility of her illustrations, and the quick flashes
of her intellect. Her illustrations were drawn
from far-flung fields, everyday life, science, lit-

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 75

erature, art, and so clearly phrased that any-
one could easily follow the application. Some-
times their very commonplaceness made them
interesting, because unexpected. Her delivery
was rapid; with all the quick readiness of her
physical self, utterance lagged far behind the
mental processes. For this reason, the taking
of notes was not easy, and too, the atmosphere
in her classes was often so surcharged with live-
liness of interest that transcription of notes
lapsed of its own accord. Professional stenog-
raphers, even, had difficulty following her ra-
pid speech. She had been told of it, and tried
to be careful about it, but her on-rushing ideas
would sweep away the would-be inhibition.
This quickness of mental activity showed itself
also in her lavish use of varied and original
abbreviations. She was fond of all sorts of
graphic representations, and liberally sprinkled
them with unexpected abbreviations. In making
these graphs, her restless, sensitive hands flew
swiftly and accurately across the board until
it was easy to abandon one's self to watching
them instead of following her line of thought.
Her more intimate letters were full of abbre-
viated words that most people would not think

76 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

of shortening, because her thoughts so crowded
upon one another.

Principles upon which Miss Norsworthjr
placed much emphasis in her teaching are: the
immense value of habit formation in education
and in lif6; the fact that man is a social unit,
neither "free" nor "equal," but according to
his gifts responsible as a contributory factor
to the good of his group; and that conduct is
character, since "Deeds determine character
as much as character deterrriines deeds." It is
easy to see that here entered her own ideas of
human values. She believed thoroughly in the
dictum that "The price of a disciplined intel-
lect and will is eternal vigilance in the forma-
tion of habits," and she lost no opportunity
to present that proposition with its proofs. It
may be said parenthetically that training in
psycholojgy had but confirmed what experience
had taught her under the disciplining eye of
a wise mother. She stressed greatly the neces-
sity for accepting the terms "character" and
"habit" as wholly synonymous, and that he
alone is moral who chooses deliberately and
pursues relentlessly those habits of action which
make for the good of his group.

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 77

Her former students will long recall the ex-
traordinary clarity and inexhaustible variety
with which she presented the facts of educa-
tional psychology, never forgetting the human
side of life. One of them says: "Certain of her
words that I found in my notebook I committed
to memory because they sound so much like
her. Whenever I repeat them, the eloquent
earnestness with which she said them to us
comes to me: 'First of all, and above all, man
is a social unit, depending on others, and sus-
taining others. His moral test is conduct and
motive. What we do alone counts, not what
we aspire to do; to consider the motive is essen-
tial only as it flowers into conduct. In connec-
tion with final habits, no one can hope to get
out of the transition period, for once our theory
of conduct is formulated and put into action,
we are ready for the next higher step. Broad-
ening vision, fresh Inspiration, keep alive the
chance for growth, always dynamic in itself.
The world grows, life grows, the bdividual
must needs grow, -r— through conscious choice,
through reason, through will, through ideals.' "

Miss Norsworthy's classes at Teachers Col-
lege were always large. She speaks in one of

78 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

her letters of meeting each week four hundred
and eighty different students. This fact greatly
increased the volume of work in the matters
of correcting papers and giving individual help.
She would never delegate to an assistant the
valuing of examinations or periodical papers,
because she felt that by reading them herself
she could more justly gauge the work of her
students. The zest of her interest in them seemed
never to stale, for behind the paper she always
saw its writer, and felt his interest to be hers.

Of the several stories about Miss Norsworthy
extant at Teachers College, one goes back to
the early days of her apprenticeship as an in-
structor. The head of the psychology depart-
ment was to be absent, and she was unexpect-
edly called on to take his classes. It would have
been a trying experience for any young teacher,
for many of the students at Teachers College
are by no means novices, nor are they inartic-
ulate. For Miss Norsworthy, it was a doubly try-
ing time both because of her inexperience as com-
pared to theirs, and because of her shyness and
self-depreciation, intensified by the high valua-
tion that she knew was universally put upon
the absent professbr. As she appeared before

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 79

the class, no doubt inwardly hoping that some
phenomenon might even yet happily relieve her
of the necessity of trying to teach it, a seriously-
taking-himself person on the front row with
the ready resentment for the unknown, remarked
to his neighbor, "Where is the professor to-day?
and who is this in his place ? I, for one, did not
come to Teachers College to be taught by a
chit of a girl." Miss Norsworthy heard the re-
mark, and human creature that she was, it
thoroughly fired her. It is easy to fancy how
her eyes must have blazed wrath, and her cheeks
flamed. The shrinking and dread with which
she had faced the class fell from her. She was
no longer a "chit of a girl," but a roused fighter.
That recitation went with vim and snap. Ques-
tioned about this incident. Miss Norsworthy
laughed with the glee of a child, and answered,
"Of course I remember that. It was one of the
triumphs of my teaching, because at the close
of the hour, that man came up and told me how
he had enjoyed the session. I never felt more
giddy with victory in my life."

An incident of more recent years is told. A
certain man had been advised by former stu-
dents, as was often done, to be sure to register

8o NAOMI NORSWORTHY

for courses with Dr. Norsworthy. Impressed
with the unanimity of the counsel he received
on the subject, he elected Dr. Norsworthy's
course, and felt that he had done his full duty
by himself and his interested friends. His cha-
grin was keen when the professor presented her-
self, "a slip of a woman." On further thought,
before the next class day, he decided that some-
how he had been cheated, and that redress was
due him for something from some quarter or
other. Such situations are the causes for a dean's
being; to the dean he would go. His complaint
was listened to patiently and fully, — that he
had been misled into registering for a course
with Dr. Norsworthy under the assumption
that the Doctor was a man, and she was not
at all. The dean finally told him that he was
still laboring under some sort of false impres-
sion, — "You will find her one of the strongest
men on our faculty. Go to her classes a few
times and see if you do not think her so." This
story, a true one, is rounded out by the man's
returning to the dean in the course of time to
assure him that his opinion concerning Dr. Nors-
worthy as one of the "strong men"' of the fac-
ulty was entirely true.

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 8i

A woman long associated with Miss Nors-
worthy on the faculty of Teachers College
aptly puts many of the things for which she
stood in the daily life of the institution : " Some-
times all the qualities of mind and heart that
we most prize will be combined in one person,
— brilliant scholarship, magnetism, patience,
sympathy. So we knew her. Because of her
ever-ready human helpfulness, too much was put
upon her for her spirit's willing offer. Busy as
we both were, at the beginning of each year
she gave me an hour of her full time to help my
students gather up the threads of their pre-
vious work in psychology on which my course
could be built. The time was one of joy, as I
sat in her class and listened to the rare skill
with which she touched the high points of the
work of the preceding year. To me, too, she
gave constantly new views of my own field, as
with quick speech and brilliant eyes she gave
us of her best. Before the days of the Woman's
Faculty Club, a small group of women faculty
members would gather in the various homes to
discuss our many problems. Dr. Norsworthy
was always ready to help, and with keen in-
sight and quiet words calm our often excited

82 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

discussions. Who else was ever to the students
what she was! As I go from one part of the
country to the other, I realize more fully than
ever before that to many, Teachers College
was Naomi Norsworthy. Students have always
asked of her first when they have come for col-
lege news. The memory of her as I last saw her
lingers. She was standing before a great audi-
ence of six thousand teachers, at a Superin-
tendents' Meeting. I can hear her spirit speak-
ing through her words, and afterwards see the
old students crowd about her for the valued
word of greeting."

A tribute that she would like, says: "Clarity
and simplicity characterized her presentation
of her subject, and straight, direct thinking
was called out by her manner of conducting
discussions. No concealing of imperfect under-
standing and half-knowledge under cover of
high-sounding phrases was possible. Creating
an atmosphere of sincere seeking for truth in
her classroom, she stimulated her students to
genuine inquiry. Every one who came into
the circle of Miss Norsworthy's acquaintance
spoke of her strong personality. Her breadth
and generosity of mind, her vivid outlook on

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 83

life, her kindly and unaffected interest in the
problems and ambitions of other lives, and her
staunch integrity in dealing with all questions
either intellectual or moral were striking traits.
Her charm of personality was never made use
of in her teaching to secure the personal alle-
giance of her students. She seemed wholly un-
conscious of possessing any particular qualities
which might give her an enthusiastic personal
following. Her popularity rested on no facti-
tious or superficial basis; it grew steadily from
year to year because she was recognized as a
great leader and a great soul."

Another professor who knew her well, says:
"Her flexibility in understanding and utiliz-
ing any worth-while contribution from any of
the students effectually created in them the
attitude of responsibility for participating in
the work of the hour. Then, as one student
put it, * She was so anxious that the one called
on should do well; her whole facial expression
seemed as though she would literally pull the
answer out; then, when it did come and was
good, she was so happy.' Well we remember
that absorbed, anxious frown and the forward
inclination of the head, followed by the quick

84 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

nod of approval and the delighted snap of her
big, brown eyes. But woe betide the lazy stu-
dent who prepared only textbook replies, or
the one who talked in vague generalities. The
first was soon heard bewilderedly inquiring
'What is she driving at?' While the second
was brought to share Miss Norsworthy's dis-
appointment when, in looking for specific de-
tails, she found none. j
" It was a joy, in the early years of her teach-
ing, to watch for the awakening of her classes
to the fact that they had an instructor of no
mediocre ability. Year after year, the neutral^
guarded attitude of the September opening days
became the surprised eagerness of October, and
developed before Thanksgiving into the en-
thusiastic cooperation so characteristic of her
classroom. In the more recent years no such
awakening was necessary, for the students came
prepared for their special opportunity. As the
alumni scattered to all parts of the country
they carried her reputation with them; so that
we soon grew accustomed to hear, on registra-
tion days, inquiries for the courses Miss Nors-
worthy gave, as though that was the main
object of the students' search. Often was re-

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 85

counted the tale of students from far distant
States who had chosen Teachers College rather
than some other institution because they had
been told, *Oh, go by all means to Teachers
College — you must, Miss Norsworthy is there.'
Indeed, when the rapidly increasing numbers
of students necessitated simultaneous sections
of one course, it was no easy task to console
those who did not have the good fortune to be
in her division."

Of her other interests, this :

"The weekly informal reception at her home
during several years were centers of such fun
and good companionship; then the simple pic-
nic joys with the annually changing members
of the Y.W.C.A. cabinet; the numerous lunch-
eons and dinners also at which her quick wit
made her so welcome as toast-mistress. With
eager, whole-hearted simplicity she shared in all
the conviviality around her, appreciative alike
of the merriment of others and of the joke upon
herself. - «

"Said a little protegee of hers: 'I'm afraid
to talk to some people, but I can say anything
to Miss Norsworthy and she'll always listen.'

"Said a mature student: 'In the blackest six

86 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

weeks of my life I just don't know what I should
have done if I had not had Miss Norsworthy
to turn to. I could easily have gone insane, only
her strong hand gave me such a pull up.'

"One of the College st)ngs voices its feeling
of Miss Norsworthy's influence when it speaks
of her love and tact as reforming a student."

One other such expression, likewise from an
associate of years, must be quoted:

"Who that has known Naomi Norsworthy
does not deeply appreciate the qualities which
made her so loved, indeed almost reverenced,
among her colleagues? Hers was the modesty
that 'seeketh not its own'; the simplicity that
scorns pretense; the clear vision that sees the
path to the ideal and follows it with single eye;
the trained intellect that can 'spin the gossa-
mers as well as forge the anchors of the mind.'
Who ever went to Miss Norsworthy in per-
plexity or in trouble and went away unhelped?
Who ever relied on her to undertake a delicate
and complicated piece of work and met with
disappointment? She had a rarely penetrating
insight into the heart of a problem and the
heart of an individual. Seeing as she almost
infallibly did the crux of a difficulty, and using

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 87

the wonderful tact and the instinctive under-
standing of her fellow beings that were her
rich and peculiar gifts, she unraveled many a
tangled web in college administration and in
personal life.

"What tribute can express the unstinted
giving of herself to students and to colleagues
that made her life a continuous blessing! Not
the mere willingness to give, undirected by in-
telligent understanding that characterizes the
efforts of many well-meaning individuals, but
the willingness to expend time and energy and
thought in comprehending a difficult situation
was what she evinced before offering the sound
advice or active help that could always be
counted on.

! "In the classroom, how quickly Miss Nors-
worthy stimulated the interest and thought of
every student. No contribiition to class dis-
cussion, however lame and halting it might be,
if offered in good faith, failed to receive sym-
pathetic treatment from her, and be made to
contribute its bit towards working out the com-
mon problem. No one who has been privileged
to sit at the feet of this gifted teacher but has
felt the quick play of her sympathy as well as

88 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the stimulating quality of her thinking, and the
broad understanding of her chosen subject.

"Spirits like this one too rarely move among
us, therefore the loss of this strong soul has
created a gap that cannot be filled. We who
are left behind can only strive with quickened
spiritual sense to envisage the ideals she be-
lieved in and worked for, and to bring them to
pass with what success we may."

"Oh, Dr. Norsworthy, won't you please
speak to me?" impulsively exclaimed a girl
whom she was passing in a hall in Barnard Col-
lege. Miss Norsworthy was puzzled for a sec-
ond — should she know this girl ? Seeing her
perplexity, the girl hastily added: "You don't
know me, I am just a Barnard girl, but every-
body knows who you are and how wonderful
you are. I just had to speak to you. I want to
feel that I too know you." A friend with Miss
Norsworthy told this little happening later,
and the woman to whom she told it said: "What
a human magnet she is! There is something
almost uncanny about the way she draws peo-
ple to her. It is her human-ness, I think. Her
cup of sympathy is always running over and
never full."

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 89

' Teaching was but part of Miss Norsworthy's
contribution to the life of Teachers College.
She was Adviser of Women, and executive in
many posts. It may be that she valued most the
opportunity given by these positions to come
into close touch with people, that opportunity
of all in life the most precious to her. To resist
the charm of her interest was impossible; it
was too subtle, too stimulating. This individual
interest has been shown to have been a heavy
tax on her time and strength. "You cannot
afford to hurry people where deep concerns are
at stake. Reserves are delicate and sacred; they
cannot stand hasty treatment," she said. The
hours that she speijt in teaching and in prepara-
tion were few compared to those spent in this
kind of service. Her flashing insight irresistibly
drew people to her; her sympathy held them.
"If you are stone, be lode-stone; if you are
plant, be sensitive; if you are man, be love,"
Hugo advises. Not many people combine the
qualitites of lode-stone, of sensitive plant, and
of love, as she did. Her capacity for feeling
was so great, her susceptibility so keen, that
she could divine much of what one would say
without the medium of words. As teacher and

90 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

as woman she drew to herself human problems
and human confidences; few ever left her with-
out new light beaming into their little world.
She could always "see blue sky," and show it
to others.

Miss Norsworthy spent much time and
thought in fostering the religious life at Teach-
ers College. For several years she was chair-
man of the Advisory Board of the Young
Women's Christian Association, and she was
also a member of the National Board of that
organization. Appointed on a committee of
the National Board to consider the basis for
Y.W.C.A. membership, as to whether it should
remain on the evangelical basis or change its
terms of admission, she worked persistently for
a more democratic type of organization. Meas-
ures put through by this committee have been
felt as broadening and revivifying influences
wherever the work of that admirable organi-
zation is known. In the immediate group to
which she belonged at Teachers College, she
likewise helped to make democracy in religion
more nearly possible by furthering the scheme
for the federation of the different religious or-
ganizations; hitherto they had worked in igno-

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 91

ranee and more or less in unconcern as to the
purposes and ideals of one another; by joining
their forces, she felt that much more could be
accomplished, in striving for common ideals es-
sentially the same, however widely they might
differ in lesser details. This federation, known
as the Joint Advisory Bpard of Religious Work
in Teachers College, chose Miss Norsworthy
for its first chairman, and under her tactful
guidance, the movement was carried to success.
Jew, Catholic, and Protestant alike, said, "She
understands."

In the religious work of Columbia University
also she had a place, serving on the two central
committees representing the various divisions
of the University: the "Hill Committee," the
coordinating factor of the several religious or-
ganizations, and the Graduate Religious Forum,
an organization which "provides an opportunity
for all graduate students to discuss with each
other some of the fundamental issues of life."
These several religious associations had of her
time and thought as they chose to demand.

Natural queries may arise as to Miss Nors-
worthy's attitude towards questions about
which justly centers the immediate concern of

92 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

to-day, about education, and woman suffrage.
It is not inapt to speak of what she thought
of the interesting topic of "vocational educa-
tion." Her position here was a consistent one,
based on practicality and idealism. All work,
however mechanical or seemingly blighted by
drudgery, should become a means for personal
growth, should be made to contribute to the
worker's mentality and character. Efficiency
in any direction comes through training, either
got at great loss from the actual work itself
by "the trial and success" method, or got
without waste, and more quickly through train-
ing, education. If ninety per cent of the chil-
dren from the elementary schools go into the
industrial and commercial life of the commun-
ity, then why not give them definite training
for their needs? This training should be put
wheresoever in the grades it is necessary in or-
der for it to serve its purpose; if in the fourtb
or fifth, good. Two aims to be kept before the
educator are: first, the need for the child to be-
come a social contributor to his environment,
an aim that includes at once ability to make a
good living; and second, the need for him to
judge values properly, an aim that includes

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 93

power to use his leisure correctly. Added to
these aims is the fact that one learns hy doing,
physically, and therefore that the school should
concern itself in securing adequate, concrete
experiences, in order to give flexibility, power,
freedom. Are there many answers to the dis-
cussion of vocational education in the face of
the needs of the ninety per cent who go into
vocational life? To the practical person there
is but one answer. The training should include,
besides the work itself, proper correlation with
socializing studies. Means should be found to
break down artificial valuations now attaching
to industrial activity. The young should be
taught the value and the excellence of everyday
labor, be it hand-labor or head-labor. The in-
troduction into our schools of training in the
vocations would help towards the highly desir-
able end of training citizens to believe that "all
true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but
true hand-labor, there is something of divine-

ness."

Her attitude towards woman suffrage was
less clearly defined. Her belief in the necessity
for keeping life flexible, open and ready, cut
her off from dependence on "causes," as well

94 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

as from faith in "associations" and formulas
of all kinds. One is inevitably reminded of
Emerson in this attitude towards the burning
question of his day, slavery: "God must govern
His own world, and knows His way out of this
pit without my desertion of my post, which has
none to guard it but me." Of course, Miss Nors-
worthy made no such statement of her position;
indeed, she did not state it vigorously at all.
If she was pressed, she let it be understood
that her immediate anxiety was to help women
towards a better sense of values, to quiet their
restlessness by holding aloft ideals of poise and
sanity, to try to help them believe that the
truest law is "ever innermost to outward,"
Many there will be to scoff at these as the
important matters. But this sort of person is
rare enough to stand forth in a generation as
the preserver of an example that the world can
ill afford to lose; such an one strengthens our
faith in the power of mankind to lay fast hold
on whatsoever is

"Allied to that spirit-world,
Outside the limits of our space and time,
Whereto we are bound."

Miss Norsworthy's devotion to ideals of de-

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 95

mocracy in every phase of student life was in-
tense. She believed not at all in the labels and
factitious exdusiveness that tend to set apgrt
a small group, often self-elected. To her, they
represented useless and artificial barriers to a
full realization of one's highest possibilities as
a "social unit," because the banding together
of the few destroys the bonds of oneness with
the many, and makes far more difficult the
encompassing of larger ends that should be
common interests. She could be found in the
forefront of any fight where democracy was in-
volved.

During the last few years there came to Miss
Norsworthy many calls for public addresses.
For any one who had known her only in the
narrow circle of the classroom it was surpris-
ing to see her power over large audiences. The
thrilling influence of her personality seemed con-
tagious ; there were times when this response so
reacted upon her that she rose to expressions
of impassioned fervor. Her timidity never failed
to rack her both before and after these occa-
sions> however, making her feel sure that the
final sentence of abject failure had at last been
pronounced upon her. All occasions for public

96 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

speaking were times of anxiety for her. Never
sure of herself as a speaker, her constitutional
shyness found her easy prey; it was one weak-
ness which she found hard to exorcise with her
will. In her classes she was reasonably certain
of a sympathetic response, for she was too sen-
sible to be otherwise when year after year they
had cheered her by enthusiastic approval; but
of a miscellaneous strange audience she was
never quite sure that she could correctly enough
gauge the temper to translate for them what
she wished to say. This conscious dread found
no echo in the minds of those who listened to
her, for her perfect outward poise gave no in-
timation of it. It was always there though,
and the reaction afterward was akin to the feel-
ings of a liberated galley slave. This nervous
experience was an inevitable accompaniment
of the dinners of the Teachers College Alumnae
at which she presided as toast-mistress. An in-
teresting, if irrelevant, by-the-way in connec-
tion with these dinners is that Miss Norsworthy
for days preceding them made it a point to
watch for old students, on the streets, in hotel
lobbies, at conferences and general meetings, in
order to see that they knew the date and place

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 97

of the dinner, and she prided herself on know-
ing the face of every student who had ever reg-
istered at Teachers College, in her day, though
she might never have known the name.

No other member of the faculty at Teachers
College could more easily fill the chapel. When
she was to be the speaker, a large attendance
was assured. One talk made there that called
forth appreciation had in it much of her life-
creed ; a skeleton outline of it was found among
her papers. The suggestion for it is found in
2 Corinthians iii, 2, "Ye are our epistle . . .
known and read of all men." How she would
treat a subject like this one Is not difficult to
guess, even if her notes were not available.
Epistles in the Pauline conception are not let-
ters, but men; not upon waxen tablets, but
upon the lives of men did the Great Exemplar
choose to grave his precepts. Character is the
highest medium possible in which to work out
a conception of ideal beauty; it is the one ever-
lasting medium, for from life to life is communi-
cated the heart-throb that alone means reality.
"A human life is forever God's voice to utter
His divinest truth." That life is the noblest
which will bring from the Divine to the human

98 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the message fullest of truth, to live by and die
by, a fact exemplified by the "beacon-lights
of time" throughout the ages — the greatest of
which is the Christ. Our best in inspiration and
courage each day comes from those about us
whose lives are epistles, bearing the impress of
God's message to man through man, delivered
by the words on their lips, the work of their
hands, the dreams in their hearts, an epistle
"known and read of all men," full of hope and
strength. The worth of what you believe is to
be found only in what you are, and daily live.
To be an epistle of God means to live the true
and loathe the false. In our lives may be read
the noble message of God's truth and His love.

To those who heard this talk, there may seem
a half-profanation in thus attempting to bring
it to memory by this inadequate sketch, so
wholly lacking the spirit of fervor which she
threw into these religious talks. But it is the
one record of them that can be found, and that
fact makes it worth recording.

A characteristic often made use of in the
swift-revolving wheels of demand at Teachers
College was Miss Norswbrthy's tact. Her sen-
sitivity to human relations and values, together

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE 99

with her good sense and exquisite gentleness,
made her valuable in the complexities which
must necessarily arise when many people are
working together with issues so large and va-
ried as those of Teachers College. Her fighting
ability was not ignored, and added to her tact,
made her a desirable ally in any cause. "She
was a good sport," one man says; "you could
always count on her 'playing the game,' fight-
ing to the very end, and never a whine if she
chanced to lose." How his words would have
pleased her! To "play the game" was what she
would always have chosen. "She was so sen-
sible and just," says another man, "always
ready and willing to see the other fellow's side."
Of all the many tributes poured out from hearts
that have mourned for her, none says more
than this: "It speaks well fOr human nature
that all who ever knew her, knew her for what
she really was."

There was no detail in the daily life of Teach-
ers College too trivial for her to take note of
and spend herself upon, should there be need.
Her sustained keenness of intuition made her
fasten upon the least incident as possibly sig-
nificant to some one's happiness. She possessed

Icxj NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the Herodotean quality of considering nothing
remote or slight that most indirectly concerned
life and its relations. This faculty of discern-
ing hidden meanings was the consequence of her
imaginative power that so insistently worked
along the line of human interests. How she
learned of many of these minor, even humble,
problems is a question. One example of this
kind is recalled when she spent much effort in
straightening out dissatisfaction that had arisen
over the manner in which the Thanksgiving
goodies were distributed in the baskets given
to the maids at Teachers College. This was the
kind of thing, multiplied over and over, that no
remonstrance could bring her to see was too lit-
tle significant for the expenditure of her frail
strength.

She would stand a certain amount of lectur-
ing, and then out would come, "Humph! what
does anybody know of how significant these
things are till it is worked out? If it did n't
matter to anybody, there would n't be any fric-
tion about it. I can't be happy if I feel that I
might help to make anybody else more nearly
so, and am not doing it. What does being tired
amount to? I'd rather feel tired than mean."

THE YEARS AT TEACHERS COLLEGE loi

So It was that her ceaseless vigil In her place
In Teachers College went on year after year.
It would seem that she tried to follow every
flash of the huge shuttle as It darted back and
forth In the roaring loom of that life, crowded
so full of the complex social and educational
and moral forces of this stirring age. For the
sixteen years she was a member of the faculty
of Teachers College there was never a moment
when she did not consider that fact the greatest
cause for pride in her outward life. Her devo-
tion to the broad ideals for which she felt that
the institution stood was profound. She spoke
of the college with much the same air of per-
sonal pride with which she referred to her
mother. It Is possible that It was the one bond
of her human associations with which she did
not consciously break, for when far too weak
for the strain she would insist on seeing friends
who brought her news from Teachers College.

Lord, grant her still some work for heart and brain —
A glad, rich day of usefulness again!
Eager, yet all unhurried; poised to meet
What Fate holds forth of triumph or defeat.

O God Most Wise, Who deftly takes away

The tools and playthings of our little day.

Take Youth, and Fame, — and dreams surpassing fair —

But not the work we love!

102 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Somehow, somewhere.
The master-mind moves toward the goal it sought;
Spare her that splendid quest, that crystal thought.
That vision sure, which was our whole delight
Till dusk enwrapped her, and the long, long night.

The scene — where shifted? where, at Thy behest
That hoard of priceless lore made manifest?
What service for the busy hand and heart.
So lavish of the wealth they could impart?
Surely Thy blessed vineyard cannot spare
Such craftsman, but must hold her dear and rarel

Some day, in Thy good time, shall we once more

About her press, and marvel as before?

Shall we of lesser mold behold her still

On Thy high tasks intent, dauntless of will.

And in her work the old-time, matchless skill?

(Adapted by permission from the poem "Josiah Royce," by
Laura Simmons.)

VI

THE CLOSING YEARS

For thoughts of gloom or suffering to be
associated with a nature so full of light and life
as Miss Norsworthy's is the last thing to be
desired. Fearful as she was of the shadows of
brooding and the sorrowful questionings that
can come from dwelling upon the mysteries of
life and its crowning mystery of death, she
wanted to stay far removed from thoughts that
could cower or drag down. With this knowl-
edge in mind, it is especially difficult to speak
of her closing years, for in the recounting of
them must linger an echo of the eternal "why."
She went "unterrified into the gulf of death,"
but we who stand upon these shores of time
must needs grieve for her suffering, for the
small help that lay in our too-human hands.
But one justification can be found for threading
back the record of this painful time: the marvel
of her stood forth as never before, for as she had
faced life, she faced death with that great spirit —

"A portion of the Eternal which must glow
-»^ Through time and change, unquenchably the same."

104 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

In one of her letters she says, "'He giveth
his beloved sleep,' — sleep here, the awaken-
ing there." Solace must come in the thought
that she has "outsoared the shadows of our
night," and is free to compass all she here de-
sired, as we who have not awakened from "the
dream of life" turn sadly to the task of finding
fresh courage in the example of fearlessness and
love that she gave us. Because the ideals she
had striven for spoke so bravely through these
closing years, the record must be told.
I A question that has leaped naturally to many
lips since her life was cut off when its halfway
station was scarcely passed, is, "Why should
she have died so young.?" and a possible half-
answer may have been found in the multiple
demands of her overcrowded life. On further
thought, such an answer would seem not only
unjust to her, but also untrue. It is undeniable
that she was a woman pressed down by far
too many taxes, for she was teacher, house-
keeper, executive in a dozen posts, professional
consultant, and spiritual adviser for hundreds.

Just how many and how varied were the
calls upon her cannot accurately be said, for
she never admitted them; to have done so

THE CLOSING YEARS 105

would have been to consider herself, and she
elected to do all those things, found happiness
in doing them. Many of her duties were official,
coming to her from her position as Adviser of
Women, as Chairman of the Welfare Commit-
tee, as President of the Women's Faculty Club,
as member of the Y.W.C.A. Board, and maybe
first of all, as the teacher of enormous classes,
all of which places she filled at the same time.
These posts had gravitated to her as the out-
come of her qualities of leadership, and all laid
on her exacting demands. In the absence of
her departmental head, the direction of the de-
partment of psychology fell on her, in part,
together with the responsibility of his gradu-
ate classes. Besides the enumerated sources of
drain, all beyond what most people know, was
the insistent need to follow her own desire for
service through personal contact with people.
When not in her classroom, she ordinarily spent
her time in individual conferences with stu-
dents, who gladly and quickly availed them-
selves of her splendid help. There were also
the outside calls upon her. She gave lectures
on Child Study at the School for Ethical Cul-
ture; she met mothers' clubs of various strata

io6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

in New York City; she journeyed hither and
thither to talk to widely scattered groups about
Teachers College; she invariably attended the
meetings of the Association of Superintendents
of the National Education Association, and
presided at the dinners of the Teachers College
Alumnae; she responded to an increasing num-
ber of calls for talks at State Teachers' Asso-
ciations. Her time for months ahead was
mapped out. Besides these official demands,
she administered her own household, looking
after the "creature comfort" of five people.
She appeared at the social affairs of Teachers
College and Columbia; for others beyond that
circle, there was no time. This tension never
relaxed. She was determined to meet all these
demands, and meet them she did in a way im-
possible to a smaller nature. But that the grind
of them played a part in her early death is not
possible, though necessarily it wore terribly
on her powers of physical resistance. The wish
that she might have had some untrammeled
moments may spring up in the minds of others;
it never troubled her.

Could she have been spared this over-taxing.'
It is a difficult question. Her consent could

THE CLOSING YEARS 107

never have been won to be cut off from free in-
tercourse with people; that was the highest ex-
pression of her life aim, and in it she found her
greatest pleasure.' It is no doubt true that if
all her daily round of duties had been known,
she could have been spared the detail of much
routine work in her several official positions,
little though she would have liked for that to
be done. She found so much satisfaction in
spending herself recklessly that trouble would
have arisen had the suggestion been made to
take away a part of all she found to do. At
once woujd have come the fear that she had
not been measuring up. The over-drafting as a
whole was known to no one; a few people knew
in part, and she resented any interference from
them when the wisdom of a slowing-down was
hinted at. In her over-zeal, whose influence
could have availed to make pause for her? The
authorities at Teachers College were to a cer-
tain extent aware of how lavishly she was ex-
pending herself, and essayed a few times to
remonstrate with her. Few things so greatly
alarmed her, for she feared there must be a flaw
somewhere, or nobody would think she was
undertaking too much. There were times when

io8 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the strong will failed, and she would be forced
into the quiescence of a momentary illness; then
her mother would mount guard and cut off all
approach, but these occasions were of short
duration. Evidently the mother understood her
too well, knew the passion for work too well,
sympathized with it too well, to attempt to
keep her long away from her beloved "people."
When she was quite out of breath, she might
be prevailed upon to see the necessity of halt-
ing long enough to get it back, but no more than
that. The short vacations of the school year and
summers were the only breathing speljs. Others
she never claimed, not even week-ends, as is
the custom of many teachers. She considered
her work of far more importance than all else;
she was happy in it, why should it worry any
one that sometimes she was tired?

That she was careless of herself physically,
from one viewpoint, must not be concluded.
Her appetite was always fickle, yet she tried
earnestly to wheedle it into a semblance of real-
ity; within bounds, she succeeded in making
herself eat fairly well. She tried to be careful
of sleep, retiring early. Much of her college
work, correcting examination books and pre^

THE CLOSING YEARS 109

paring lectures, she did while lying down. The
last two years of her life, after her mother's
illness, she reserved her Saturdays and Sundays
as much as possible, but it was done for her
mother's sake, not her own. Most of the latter
years she was under the attention of a physi-
cian, and was careful to follow his instructions,
largely because she was afraid of being sick and
of thus being kept away from college. "Work is
my salvation," she would often say; and, "Wait
till I get strong and rested this summer, and I
will show you what I can do." However one
may selfishly wish to have seen her less drained,
less burdened, it must be remembered she never
wished it so, would never willingly have con-
sented to have it so.

While in the last analysis It must be con-
cluded that overwork played no part in the
cause of her death, nevertheless a nameless
pathos attaches to the thought of her life of
ceaseless demands. There was, in childhood,
the frail body and the close confidence of a
mother burdened with a sense of financial stress
and a pressing ambition for three children; in
girlhood, the constant thought of need for an
education that would enable her to earn a liv-

no NAOMI NORSWORTHY

ing and relieve her mother's cares; in later years,
the numberless calls from diverse professional
activities, the endless strain of meeting the hu-
man cries of the many who leaded on the rich-
ness of her spirit, always with a physical self
that steadily weakened. Because she chose this
crowded life, a note of disloyalty may hide in
the suggestion that in her preference was cause
for lamenting by any fellow-creature. That she
welded the whole into a life of happiness is too
well known to be commented on. " It is a pleas-
ure merely to pass her in the halls, she is so
bright and happy," somebody said. This out-
standing fact of her pleasure in endless serving
must never be forgotten.

The fall of 1 91 3, Miss Norsworthy planned
to take the first Sabbatical half-year she had
permitted herself. Influenced by the pressure
brought to bear on her to put her professional
knowledge into book form, she decided to take
the leave of absence she had earned so many
times over and devote it to writing a book, the
"Psychology of Childhood." Her brother's ap-
proaching marriage would mean that her mother
would not be alone, so that she might seek a
quiet place free from expectation of interruption

THE CLOSING YEARS iii

and gather material for the book her professional
co-workers told her it was her duty to write.
For once, she planned some relaxation. The
writing should be the main thing, the balance
that would keep her from feeling selfish or idle,
but there was to be time for many other things,
too: country drives, indulgence in certain books
on which she had long had an eye of anticipa-
tion, visits to picture galleries, letters to friends
who too often might have seemed neglected,
all the thousand things she had long wanted
to do and could not find time for, should be
packed into those free months.

She found quarters that gave opportunities
to carry out these delightful plans, and began
her play-time. It was the first freedom she had
ever known when college was in session. It
was quickly ended. In less than a month the
bolt fell; for the first time she was to learn
the bitterness of a situation where will and in-
telligence could not find a way out. The un-
expected summons came that hurried her back
to New York; her mother was ill.

Then followed the hard struggle to have
her mother's life spared, months of unending
strain. All day she went through the round of

112 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

duties and human calls at Teachers College,
hastening home between classes to see her
mother, or to the hospital during the ten weeks
she was there. At night, every night she was
at the mother's bedside, untiring, devoted, torn
lest in her ignorance she might leave undone
some possible means of comfort. She would
not listen to any suggestion of a trained nhrse;
her mother preferred her attendance, and she
preferred to give it. A nurse was called in only
a week before the end, though Mrs. Nors-
worthy was not then reconciled to her presence.
The daughter alone she wanted with her. How
much physical suffering Miss Norsworthy was
herself enduring the two years of her mother's
illness, no one knows. She remarked more than
once, half laughingly, that she believed she was
affected by the same trouble, and would hasten
to say, "Isn't that a lively imagination for
you.^" There was no lessening in the outward
demands. Her work at Teachers College went
on as it had always done, without regard for the
grief tugging at her heart. A dread that re-
mained long to plague her was the fear that
everything had not been done to lessen her
mother's suffering. The doctor's assurance in

THE CLOSING YEARS 113

this connection was sought more than once.
This dread was not only the outcome of a
daughter's devotion, but also of her belief that
the duty lies heavy on us to use our intelligence
to work out the best possible solution in all dif-
ficulties. How little can be done to alleviate the
wretchedness of the dread disease she was too
soon to learn even more fully.

It is a statement that can be made of few peo-
ple who have reached years of maturity as had
Miss Norsworthy that they have never come
into close contact with death, have never seen
the majesty with which it clothes the physical
body. She had been shielded from the actuality
of sight of it as a child, and the circumstances
of her life had hitherto not brought it close.
That fact may have made her mother's going
all the harder.

It was a loss difficult for her to meet, for she
had never believed but that relief could be
found. The knowledge of her mother's suffering
which she had been powerless to relieve had
burned deep in her; her sense of loss seemed
inexpressibly increased by the thought that she
no longer had the chance of making recompense
to that mother, now that she could, for the long

114 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

years of sacrifice and devotion so cheerfully
met. She missed her mother sadly.

When this long fight was ended, Miss Nors-
worthy flung herself into her work with an in-
tensity weakened greatly by the increasing con-
sciousness of growing physical decline. She
thought this condition largely a nervous one,
engendered by the strain of nursing and anx-
iety, and In this idea, physicians agreed. For
some time she had suffered from what seemed
superficially a form of rheumatism, and though
she was under special treatment for it, the
annoyance persisted. Digestive troubles, inter-
mittent for some years, reappeared. She was
repeatedly examined by physicians, several
tests were made, and "low vitality" was the
only definite diagnosis. A fact rather interest-
ing is that she was during this time examined
for life insurance, and given a far better rating
than ten years before, because the doctor said
her general health was much better. The sup-
posed indigestion grew worse; a specialist was
consulted, and the resultant diet apparently
gave a temporary gain. The spring of 1916 was
an especially hard one. She had never had so
many invitations to distant states for addresses.

THE CLOSING YEARS 115

She was persuaded to write in collaboration
with one of the professors at Teachers College
a book on "How to Teach." The head of the
psychology department was absent on half-
year's leave, and she assumed the responsibil-
ity of acting head, together with the teaching
of his graduate classes. Days and nights of
work claimed her. There was increasingly con-
stant physical pain. Physicians assured her she
needed an absolute rest, and advised a year's
leave. That advice she laughed off. How could
she do anything like that, she asked, when her
Sabbatical had come only two years before; and
certainly she could not let her superior in com-
mand come back. Her holiday time had been
upset, and his should not be; anyway, there
was nothing serious the matter. She could easily
wait for the summer vacation; then she would
get so strong that people would be amazed.

It is always difficult to trace back the pos-
sible beginnings of an insidious disease. In the
present knowledge of medicine, there is no cer-
tain way of diagnosing the trouble to which
Miss Norsworthy fell a victim when its centers
are hidden. Since 1910, she had been suscep-
tible to what was wrongly thought to be the

ii6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

effects of cold, possibly some type of grippe.
There was no alarm felt about it, though under
different forms, the illness came time and again;
at first it was never very severe, but enough to
keep her under the care of the doctor. The pains
she thought connected with the rheumatism,
from which she suffered not a little. The close
of the college year of 1916 found her completely
worn.. When June came, she decided she should
go to the seashore instead of waiting till July
first to leave the city, as was her custom. For
once she did not stay to commencement, hop-
ing a complete change of air and diet would
help the digestive troubles and the rheumatism.
In the next few weeks, the disharmony steadily
increased, and the pain grew so great she be-
came alarmed for the first time. Hastening
back to the city, she consulted the prominent
surgeon who had attended her mother, and
he advised an immediate operation. It was the
third one she had undergone, and she faced it
without apprehension. She spoke constantly
of how happy and well she was going to be, once
it was all over, how much she could accomplish
the next college year. Considering her general
condition, she stood the severest of operations

THE CLOSING YEARS 117

apparently better than most women would have
done. Of the real condition revealed by it she
knew nothing. The doctors told her brother
that life for her could be but a matter of months.
They also urged that she be not told what was
her actual condition. The disease was carci-
noma; the hope for recovery, none. She might
rally, and live for another year, though every
probability was against it. Why, they said, rob
her of a few months free from the knowledge of
impending death; as one of them expressed it,
"Why let her feel she is in the jaws of a trap
when life is so full for her?" Temperamentally
they thought she had slight powers to resist in
a fight where defeat from the first was inevitable,
so to tell her all meant to cut off her term of
life by so much. If her strength returned, she
might be able to teach again; no one could tell.
Doctors are wise sometimes, but they did not
know her longing for the truth, or her splendid
courage.

Recuperation from the immediate effects of
the operation was rapid. She was so happy to
have it all done; possibly this condition had
caused all her aches and pains, so she would be
stronger than ever before, she said. Friends in

ii8 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

their ignorance, seeing how she rallied, joined
in gratulations. They showered on her expres-
sions of their sympathy and pleasure until the
little hospital room overran with flowers. It
touched her heart. What a beautiful world, and
how good a thing to feel the sweetness of human
love! Her stay at the hospital was only sixteen
days in duration, and in less than a month after
the operation she was in the mountains, full of
joyous anticipations for a return of health and
strength. The passing weeks brought doubts.
Somehow, she did not get her strength back as
she should, she wrote friends; but it was a warm
summer, and the water did not seem to suit her.
All the people she knew who had had opera-
tions so serious as hers said it took them a long
while to grow strong again, but they had felt
so well afterwards. Nobody must worry about
her, for she was getting better slowly, and was
planning such fine things for the new college
year.

Returning to the city in September, expect-
ing to be back at the opening of the term at
Teachers College, she was not pleased with her
improvement, so called in the doctor. He told
her she must not attempt to teach until she was

THE CLOSING YEARS 119

stronger, a verdict that greatly disturbed her.
No matter; she would rest and play and grow
better so rapidly he would be compelled to let
her go back to work on November ist. Maybe
she would try to finish the two remaining chap-
ters of the book, the "Psychology of Child-
hood," interrupted three years before by her
mother's illness. But the book had unhappy
associations, and she could never find the mood
to take it up again. The weeks passed in con-
templation of her working schemes for her new
classes, in sewing, and in enjoyment of her small
niece, a tot of two years. No complaint, no
word of sadness or uncertainty came from her,
though slowly there was coming the realization
that she was stricken to the death. The ist of
November drew near. The pains returned, in-
creased, grew too intense to be ignored. She
planned to see the doctor at a time that no one
should know of, that others might be spared as
long as possible, and from him ask the whole
truth. She faced him with characteristic direct-
ness, and he told her all. She should have been
told from the first, she thought, but now, the
knowledge must be kept to herself, for it would
distress others. She would write the engineering ,

I20 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

brother who was in Africa so that he might come
to her, but there was no need to sadden any
one else, not even the other members of her
family. Thus she decided.

A week passed, and she gave to no one the
slightest intimation that she knew how few
were her numbered days. The family did not
dream she knew; close friends came and went
with no idea of her condition, or her realization
of it. Then the ravages of the disease grew
rapidly worse, and the suffering too intense for
longer concealment. The discovery that her
brother had known the truth since the opera-
tion brought a flash of self-reproach for her own
lack of divination. With the common sense that
she always showed, she set about ordering her
affairs in the face of the new situation. Her
engagements for the winter were formally can-
celed. The hospital would mean less free access
to her friends, so if it was possible, she pre-
ferred not to go there. She must see her friends
as usual, though they should be spared sight
or knowledge of her suffering. Certain ones she
would herself tell or write of her serious illness,
for it might make a difference could they know
how she felt about it. The household must out-

THE CLOSING YEARS 121

wardly be as nearly normal as possible. No one
must speak of the "sadness of farewells." She
wanted to keep in touch with Teachers College
and know just what was going on there. A nurse
must be engaged who would not try to keep her
from doing as she pleased. There were some
excellent new detective stories that she had been
told she would enjoy. There were small remem-
brances to be thought of. Plans for certain
things to be adjusted afterward must be made
with her brother, and once that disagreeable task
was out of the way, things would be better.

Then came the long, hard struggle between
will and body. She must live till the brother
coming from Africa could reach her, and that
time could scarcely be hoped for before Thanks-
giving. There were days of fear that the flicker-
ing spark of life could not endure until her
brother could reach New York. She asked re-
peatedly, "Do you think I can last till he comes?
What does the doctor think about how long
my strength can hold?"

The tortured body for a brief space yielded
to the rallying of the brave spirit so long its
master, and there came a few days of seeming
respite. A thousand small daily interests claimed

122 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

her. She was fearful that the nurse was not
having what she liked to eat; one member of
her inner circle had a wretched cold that noth-
ing was being done for; had her father's clothes
been sent to the cleaner? The little niece had
to be entertained daily, and when far too weak
to sit up. under a lesser stimulus, the appearance
of that small lady meant "Nono" must be
propped up so that they might look at picture
books together, and discourse learnedly about
them. Her business affairs and the direction of
the small household she refused to give over
to any other until unconsciousness forbade re-
fusal. The wasting agony returned, after the
hope of seeing the absent brother had become a
reality. Nothing could have been more pathetic,
or more wonderful, than to see her hide the
actuality of her suffering from those on whom
it would press heavily, even the nearest mem-
bers of her family. Her greatest desire was
under "the fell clutch of circumstance" neither
"to wince nor cry aloud." Once when she
thought a groan had been wrung from her she
exclaimed, "My will seems gone, but please
don't think I am a coward. Sometimes it catches
me before I know it is coming."

THE CLOSING YEARS 123

The Yuletlde approached. She asked what
day of the month it was, and on being told,
said, "Why, I must be thinking about my
Christmas presents. This time, people will
have to tell me what they want, I can't take
time to plan for each one." She deeply regretted
being unable to thank every friend who remem-
bered her. Until the end, practically, she read
all of the countless letters that came to her, and
to many of them dictated answers. The beau-
tiful flowers sent in such profusion she reveled
in with the old-time, child-like, spontaneous joy.
"People are so good to me. I hope they know
how I like them, and appreciate their thinking
of me," she repeatedly said; and, "I should
like to live, if only to try to find some way to
show how it all makes me feel. I have never
done anything to deserve such expressions."

As the Christmas holidays more closely ap-
proached, there came another incentive to strug-
gle for life that others might be spared at that
season. She did not want to sadden the happi-
est time of the year for her friends. She must
try to take more nourishment. Could not the
doctor suggest some means that would bring
back her strength for just a little while? This

124 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

desire to spare others flamed in her strongest
of all. She shrank from the thought of adding
to the grief of those who loved her; she shrank
from a possible memory of her associated with
pain or sadness. The exquisite tenderness of her
could not avail.

She died in the early hours of Christmas
morning.

VII

CHARACTERISTICS

A NATURE differentiated as markedly as Miss
Norsworthy's, albeit wide in range, is not im-
possible of reduction to terms, mere catalogue
though it will be. Psychologists warn us not
to attempt to pigeon-hole mental characteristics
in such compartments as "the intellectual, the
volitional, the emotional, and moral," because
the mind refuses to be other than "continu-
ous." This fact makes it the simpler to cite
qualities in a character like hers since they do
not have to be classified, and in the life she
lived, they were apparent even to the careless
observer. Physically, mentally, spiritually, she
was set apart, though the statement would call
from her a prompt denial, indeed, an indignant
one. Who that ever saw her once has forgotten
her? The slight graceful figure was swift and
quiet and effective in every movement; the sen-
sitive face was full of light and responsiveness;
the quick mind saw associations and possibili-
ties with a flash of intuitive readiness. The

126 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

gentleness, the strength, the power, — all these
proclaimed her a Person.

Physically she must have been handicapped
all her life, though no one in her family seems
to have thought so. There was a slight tend-
ency to spinal curvature; one hip was a bit
higher than the other, a trouble from which
during her growing years she suffered. She
went through three successive operations. Her
weight was not at any time much above one
hundred, usually balancing near the traditional
"witch's weight" of ninety-nine. When on en-
tering Teachers College she took the physical
tests, the examining physijcian shook his head
over her, she seemed so slight; he told her that
she sadly lacked physical vigor, but her vitality
and the fibre of her will would make up for
much of the body's failure. Certainly there was
a wiry, resisting quality in her, the one thing
about herself that she was ever heard to boast
of. It carried her bravely through the opera-
tions, and through the drafting demands of a
life whose duties were multiplied tenfold in
comparison to those most of us know. Her
movements were remarkably quick; there was
something suggestive of the alertness of a wild

CHARACTERISTICS la;

creature in the swiftness of her physical re-
sponses. Her senses were peculiarly exquisite;
odors, colors, sounds, wrought upon her to a
intense degree. The soft texture of her thin
skin, t)ie fineness of her hair, the restlessness of
her hands, her general nervous responsiveness,
all bespoke excessively keen sensibility. She
often had applied to her the well-worn simile of
a human violin, strung to a high pitch.

The striking feature of her face were the eyes:
"wood-brown pools of paradise" they were.
They are one cause for the sad disappointment
in all pictures of her, the eyes, together with
the mobility of the face. Her skin was dark, with
an undertone of pink; the hair was dark-brown,
with an auburn gleam here and there in a strong
light, and very fine. The high forehead, the
brow of the artist, the thin face, and the unquiet
mouth made up a physiognomy that on the
whole spoke more of the poet and the mystic
than the scientist. Her eyes caught the high-
lights, and their unusual depth and sympathy
helped fascinate all who came under her spell.
"Her eyes are too dressy for the daytime," was
once said of them. The appeal of her wonderful
eyes and the magnetic grasp of her hands are

128 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

truly unforgettable. Their power remained when
all others had waned; every one who saw her
during the last sad weeks of her life spoke of
the vigor of her hand-clasp and the voiceful
depths of her eyes when all other strength had
gone.

Her physical appearance must not be left
without reference to her love for brown. She
might choose dresses of other colors, but she
never liked them, and would seldom wear them.
Her dark skin, brown hair and eyes, and the
pleasant shades of brown she dressed in made
a satisfying ensemble, the toning of which accen-
tuated the impression of a wild, woodsy thing,
gathered from her keen alertness.

Mentally and spiritually, she was indeed the
Greek ideal; "Senses, imagination, and reason
unfolded in their highest reach." Her life
moved "on in rhythmical accord with God,
nature, man." Sympathy was the basic quality
that drew people to her. Added to this native
endowment were a devoted serviceableness; a
boundless generosity; an allegiance to truth,
all of the truth, all of the time; an indomitable
will; a fine courage; the joy of a child in little
things, and a delicious sense of humor. Per-

CHARACTERISTICS 129

meating her being was a sanity that was re-
freshing and invigorating; she "saw life stead-
ily and saw it whole" as few ever do.

That these characteristics were impinged
upon a background of great shyness, the out-
come of both " nurture and nature," serves but
to deepen the note of interest in her personality.
Her natural shrinking was one of the tempera-
mental weaknesses with which her will so suc-
cessfully coped. The Italian writer. Sera, in
his volurne, "On the Tracks of Life," discusses
the trait of shyness in a suggestive way. He
writes :

"Shyness in its more enduring forms is re-
vealed as an exuberance of inner force, mental
life and physical activity, which act on the in-
dividual who happens to possess them, for want
of something else. At this time it appears as a
disease of the intelligence. But on account of
this characteristic, when it succeeds in direct-
ing its strength externally, — in making the in-
dividual forget the ego, — then we may hope
for a splendid victory. That is to say, a shy
man is often so merely because he has a bad
opinion of himself; he is often an optimist for
himself; even if he sometimes succeeds in con-

I30 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

quering himself, and appearing boastful and
proud, he is certainly not so practically. More-
over, pride, in so far as it is neglect of others,
has often its origin in shyness, and this consti-
tutes a reaction in the sense of one's own soli-
tude. Shyness is a circumlocution, a pause, a
detour of the intelligence. It is a companion
of all spiritual progress, of every ascent toward
superiority. It is the pain of every one who
feels differently from others, but who has re-
spect for truth and the sense of the difficulty
of establishing it; the anguish of him who feels
a new world in himself; but who also feels that
it is a too different world.

" It is a significant observation, already made
by others, that many of the greatest artists and
poets were shy. To give only a few names, we
may mention, for example, Virgil, Ovid, Hor-
ace, amongst the ancients ; Correggio, Michelet,
Beethoven, Lamartine, Wagner, Chopin, among
the moderns. Almost all the greatest thinkers,
the greatest minds, were afflicted with this mal-
ady; from Newton, whose shyness was prover-
bial, to Montesquieu, Rousseau, Kant, and
Hegel. Even men of action and of the greatest
action of all — government — suffered from it.

CHARACTERISTICS 131

I think the reason Is, perhaps, that a mind
which wishes to rise to great heights is exqui-
sitely sensitive."

Professor Sera's conclusion, that "a mind
which wishes to rise to great heights is exqui-
sitely sensitive," was substantiated in Miss
Norsworthy's case.

Her sympathy and serviceableness should not
be noted as separate things, so intermingled
were they; anyway, they may be told of as part
of her life-attitude, and will therefore be only
mentioned here. Under the quality of sym-
pathy correctly belongs, also, the generosity,
too big not to be dwelt on apart.

One of the trifling but significant ways in
which her generosity showed itself was in her
attitude towards those who ministered to her
creature comfort. She invariably overpaid serv7
ants, and her "tips" were munificent com-
pared to her means. She justified herself when
scolded by saying not every one could under-
stand the pleasure of an unexpected spending
capacity, for not every one had known the
depths of a scanty pocket-book, therefore it
behooved those who did know to be doubly
generous. She was at all times a spendthrift

132 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

with money. It gave her untold pleasure to do
surprising things for people, things they could
not afford to do for themselves and she could
no more afford to do for them. She would plead
in self-extenuation that the only purpose she
knew for money was to get what it could give;
that she would never live to be old; and further,
she carried endowment insurance, and expected
to be on the Carnegie Pension Fund list if she
should live out the allotted years, so why bother
about money? No anniversary in the life of a
friend was allowed to pass unnoticed. And what
cause for prodigal reveling she did find in the
spirit of the Christmas season! It was an ex-
pansive time for her. Weeks before she would
begin to rack her brain for people whom she
could remember and give unexpected pleasure.
The list grew longer and more amazing each
year. She never dared reckon her holiday ex-
penditures, influenced, it is easy to believe, by
the desire to get away from the slight sense of
financial proportion that she had, as well as
to reserve the opportunity of answering ig-
norantly if an inquiry might stray in from an
over-curious member of the family. Her enjoy-
ment of beautiful things easily augmented the

CHARACTERISTICS 133

tendency towards extravagance. How she did
like pretty clothes! The pleasure she found in
the spending of money would disarm all criti-
cism, however determined it was, or full of de-
sire for her own sparing. She never wanted to
be spared anything, pleasant or unpleasant.
Her mother used to shake her head sometimes,
but it was done with an indulgent smile, as one
meets the ways of a child who will some day
grow up and out of such habits. This extrava-
gance seemed part of the lavishness of her na-
ture, and no one who saw it in play could really
have wished it different. Among simple folk
there is a belief that people filled with the es-
sence of giving are "born with the hand open."
She was one of them.

The quality of generosity manifested itself
in other ways. The time she spent on other peo-
ple has been dwelt upon. Some notice must be
taken of the help she gave to two classes of peo-
ple, backward students, and mothers seeking
advice about their children. There was the
period when she first came to Teachers College
when most of her spare hours were spent in
coaching, for which she never accepted pay.
In later years, mothers puzzled by retardation

134 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

tendencies in their children freely came to her
for advice. For one such case she was a consul-
tant for years, assuming entire direction of the
child's development, testing progress at stated
intervals, and doing it all without remunera-
tion. When it is recalled that this field was her
professional one, that her advice was expert
advice, with fees commonly attaching thereto,
and that she did it constantly with no thought
of pay, it is seen as peculiarly characteristic.

Her love for truth was notable. It was the
cause of much teasing by friends and brothers,
who would try to assure her that society has
created certain conventional fictions in order
to reduce wear and tear. She could never be
made to listen patiently to any such idea. With
Thomas a Kempis she fully believed, " Without
the truth there is no knowing; without the way,
there is no going." She never resorted to sub-
terfuge, however slight. Deception of any kind
incensed her. "To tell and to know the whole
truth is the one way to keep things straight,
she would say. "You can't fib to Naomi" was
a byword with her brothers. A surface para-
dox seems to exist between her adherence to the
bald truth and her beautiful tactfulness. The

CHARACTERISTICS 135

happy reconciliation of the two qualities is one
of the strong proofs of her "genius." She
claimed that to be straight as a die was the
one way to prevent the tangles that call for
deviousness.

For her own part, the clarity of her life
was a thing one instantly recognized, and
dared not be unmindful of; one felt that one
could not transgress the law of truth and hope
to keep her respect. This trait was strikingly
shown during her last illness by the unconscious
testimony of the nurse, hitherto a stranger.
"You cannot deceive her," the nurse said; "it
does n't matter how little a thing it may be,
or how much you feel you should keep it back
for her own sake; somehow, once she turns
her great eyes on you, out it all comes." Her
intuitive nature pierced all disguises, and her
straightforwardness impelled truth in others.
Her very simplicity and dislike for ostentation
were parts of this love for truth. It is easy to
linger over this trait of Miss Norsworthy's,
though it may be that the fact it is even worth
mentioning is a sad commentary.

Not less remarkable was her strength of will.
We are told this sort of thing cannot be inher-

136 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

ited, but a thought of the fine will of her mother
is inescapable. As a dominant power it carried
far both mother and daughter. In Miss Nors-
worthy, it can be traced as a powerful factor
from the earliest years when, despite physical
handicaps that would have deterred a child
of ..less forcefulness, we find her following her
brothers and their boy friends in their childish
rompings ; we find it through the' years of ap-
prenticeship as a student, when no physical
discomfort was allowed to project itself between
her and the goal for which she had set out; we
find it in maturer years when without complaint,
day in and day out, she met demands from a
thousand sources that well might have stag-
gered a robust person; we find it in the last few
months of her life when stricken beyond help,
she repressed the least call for sympathy lest
it should add to the grief of those who, loving
her, grieved for her pain. Even in the last half-
conscious moments of her life, this wonderful
will asserted itself; she forced herself to swallow
nourishment and to keep it down by a mighty
effort of conscious willing, hoping thus to eke
out her painful life past the Christmas season,
always for her so glad a time, that hereafter the

CHARACTERISTICS 137

returning holiday cycle might hold no sad asso-
ciation for those nearest her.

The surmise persists that possibly the bit-
terest portion of her physical collapse was that
no longer could the will prevail. For long, from
the childhood years when she had been taught
the beauty of repression by the Spartan mother
— that long had the fiat of her splendid will
controlled the haltings and limitations of the
frail body. It could do so no longer! Therein
lay the real tragedy of her fatal illness. Her
heart had been set on returning by a certain
date, despite the doctor's opinion, to her round
of duties at Teachers College; her true physical
condition had up to that time been kept from
her. This date she fixed upon, and fused her
will into one purpose concerning. When the
day approached, and with it realization that,
despite her determination, she could not return,
and that her will was no longer supreme, from
that time can be reckoned her surrender. She
gave up. Life for her was over.

The power of concentration, developed so
highly in her, was the product of this will. The
friend who was her roommate at normal school
for three years being asked what she consid-

138 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

ered Miss Norsworthy's strongest character-
istic replied without a second's hesitation, "The
ability to concentrate on a thing and conquer
it," No one who ever saw her set herself to a
task could doubt her unusual gift in concentra-
tion.

One of Dr. Norsworthy's great charms was
the child in her. In her enjoyment of pleasure
and in her spontaneity of appreciation she
showed the open genuineness of the child. She
could identify herself with children, and it was
charming to see her with them. Her valuation
of money was childlike. Her sense of fun had
in it the bubbling note of youth; this is among
the things that stand out as the final test of her
character as an "all-round" one. Who could
hear her delightful little chuckle without smil-
ing.? She had a child's undisguised joy in pleas-
ant surprises, in delighted curiosity about
things that promised, in impatient anticipa-
tion of a "good time." All her life her mother
had to hide her Christmas greetings from her
till the glad morning came; it was so difficult
for her to wait. She found a peculiar happiness
in teasing to know what she might expect on
birthdays and at Christmas. Beyond what

CHARACTERISTICS 139

might be fancied, did one not know her well,
she loved to tease anyway. Her quick mind
saw lapses of inconsistence very readily, and
she never hesitated to make the best of them.
A bit wary as to her ability to "tell jokes," she
seldom attempted it, save under compulsion.
Possibly her friends encouraged this attitude
by assuring her that inability to "be funny"
on her own account was one of the sad limita-
tions of her English descent. But surely no one
could more readily lend herself to the spirit of
fun. It was natural unconsciously to treasure
up rare bits to retail to her, so sure was the de-
lighted response, whether it was for the gratui-
tous point of a joke, or for a recounting of some
human anecdote. Her sense of the fitness of
things, not inaptly here associated with a sense
of humor, was large. It may provoke a smile
to learn that Miss Norsworthy encouraged both
of her brothers to smoke by presenting them
with complete equipments therefor as soon as
their ages justified. It represented in her eyes
a manly habit that was proper, and she wished
to promote it.

Her courage was little to be expected in one
of her temperament. While perhaps not aggres-

140 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

sive in one way, the way marked by hewing
initiative, she would fight for any cause or any-
body that had her belief. It was a fighting that
knew no let-up, too, till the issue was closed.
A sense of personal fear could not be associated
with her. One friend tells of an occasion when
Miss Norsworthy came near harm from restive
horses and afterwards she seemed filled with
the dread of having appeared frightened. Her
pride evidently was in being afraid of being
afraid. She may have lacked initiative; if lack
it she did, it was not from any faintness of cour-
age, but to all intents and purposes because her
crowded life had small chance to give it play.
Her days were too full of straightening out the
tangles and problems of other people to have
much time left for new projects that she might
have fostered.

Intellectually her striking characteristic was
incisiveness. Her mentality was discerning, log-
ical, unerring in its ability to clear away extra-
neousness and go to the heart of a matter.
There was nothing blurred or hesitant about it;
she could "hit the bull's-eye" every time. Pos-
sibly this mental quality in her was what rec-
onciled men to being in her classes at Teachers

CHARACTERISTICS 141

College. The delight of those who knew her
was to have some unsuspecting new student
"measure swords" with her. It was not un-
usual to see two distinct groups at such times;
those members of the class who, her devoted
followers, felt that no one should be dense
enough to question her conclusions in her own
field; and others who felt the "play was on,"
and it was time to sit back and enjoy the clash,
for "the death" of the aspiring student's argu-
ments was a matter of moments. Miss Nors-
worthy, however, had little taste for wit-com-
bats. In her classroom she could not have felt
otherwise than that her students were with
her; they saw her "prove her steel" too often
not to believe that her blade was a trenchant
one. But in the broader social circles she did
not like argument, possibly because she feared
attendant hurt feelings. Controversy was most
distasteful to her, capable though she was to
hold her own. Her decisions were made promptly,
with due regard to circumstance. One of her
mental gifts was the ability to see all sides of
a question, and where consequences might lead.
Preeminently she had a certain quality of
imagination that enabled her to project herself

142 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

into the minds of others, grasp their attitudes
or mental states, and thus adequately help
them to meet situations. This imagination laid
hold upon everything, heightened as it was by
the sensitivity of her physical self; it vitalized
whatsoever it touched. Imagination may not
be a concomitant of prescience, but surely it
is a necessary accompaniment of it. Joined as
the trait was in Miss Norsworthy with an eager
intellect and a passionate sympathy, it made a
rich soil for the sprouting of whatever of human
interest was planted in it. Her ability to medi-
tate in an imaginative way was doubtless one
of the means by which she could so often find
a way out of mazes of difficulty and misunder-
standing that did not so readily open up to the
minds of others. Is not this power to dwell on
details in imagination, to recombine them and
view them in new lights, one of the marks by
which the artist's mind may be distinguished?

Her mind was excellent. Its range is shown
by the versatility of her interests and responses;
note her intense fondness for science, art, and
that which she held above all else, human life.
Her control of attention was very great. There
was nothing diffusive in her attitude; it was

CHARACTERISTICS 143

"this one thing I do" always. Herein lies an-
other explanation for the impression she made
of giving herself wholly to the person who had
her attention, a something that intensified his
sense of her personal interest, and her value.
This ability to concentrate on one thing has
been considered in the face of her delicate con-
stitution as evidence of her splendid will, but
it is not to be denied that it is a mark, also,
of intellectual power. Her mind was singularly
lucid, "full of knowledge and thought as well
as color and emotion." In its keenness of in-
tuition there was a mark of feminine genius;
in its ratiocinative quality a mark of masculine
ingenuity. She possessed, too, that mark of the
finer intellect that demands at once some sort
of working theory. The label that may be given
to her intellectual forcefulness is one few peo-
ple can justly lay claim to; it is sagacity.

There was in her nothing more admirable
than her fine pride. She had pride in her work,
in her ability to "carry a message to Garcia";
it showed itself in attention to details, in the
steady pushing she gave to whatever she under-
took, in her unwillingness to give up once she
had set her hands to a task. She had pride in

144 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

her friends, and her wish to please them in
the least thing. Her pride showed itself, too, in
her willingness to "fight for her own," in her
endurance, and control. In one of hrt letters
she makes a reference to the symbolical meaning
she had found in the childhood contest of see-
ing who could longest hold out an extended arm;
this sort of pride typified what was one of her
controlling life-forces. How clearly it shone in
the closing weeks when she feared lest any seem-
ing succumbing to pain might make her appear
cowardly! One kind of pride she often in-
veighed against, the kind that concerns itself
with appearances, and false values of all sorts.
What has been here called her pride in the last
analysis may not be so at all, but instead a
"compound of many simples," of loyalty, and
thoughtfulness, and thoroughness, and endur-
ance.

Next to her sympathy that trait oftenest
drafted by others was her tact. Maybe the
qualities are one. Friction of any kind was dis-
tasteful to Miss Norsworthy; it rasped on her
sense of harmony and ideality, and to lessen it
meant not only a duty, but a sense of personal
relief, once she knew it existed. Her tact, so

CHARACTERISTICS 145

impenetrated other qualities in her, however,
that to dwell on it is needless reiteration.

A characteristic not to be omitted as very-
strong in her was scorn — "a furnace blast of
righteous indignation" some one has called it

for self-shielding in error, for temporizing,

for expedience, for cowardice. Knowing no fear,
she despised the weakness that glozes over in
the name of "policy," the indifference or the
trepidation that causes any holding back from
the fair fight. One thing beyond her to under-
stand was how a "trimmer" could be tolerated.
Where she stood on every question involving
right was always known. She hid nothing,
feared nothing. Get her roused in such a mat-
ter, and she could dilate on it longer than on
any other. Pretense in any form found her what
Dr. Johnson calls "a very good hater."

The sanity presiding over these character-
istics is not usual in a woman of her tempera-
ment. Despite all her very feminine traits, —
tenderness, and enthusiasm, and responsive-
ness, — she had rare powers of detachment;
cool judgment made her opinions well worth
having. Her analytical mind enabled her to
see relations as a whole, and with her keen in-

146 NAOMI NORSWORTHY •

tuition, made her point of view valuable. This
detached sanity was possibly the one masculine
touch in her. Men appreciated it, and many
chose to elicit it in the consideration of their
problems; she, in turn, greatly valued their
outlook, and often sought it, when weighing
her own.

The corollaries of some of these characteris-
tics are to be expected. No one who cultivates
his will need hope to escape the charge of stub-
bornness; and as truly can no one hope for the
endowment of acute sensibility and expect to
escape impatience. Miss Norsworthy had her
share of both. Her stubbornness was of the
quiet kind. Once she made up her mind, as
to the right of a course of action, it worked
with utmost concentration and singleness of
purpose; her unobtrusive inflexibility was dis-
concerting to opposition, and not a little unex-
pected in a person of so much gentleness. Just
one thing could move her, and that was the
fear of making anything harder for another
when there was no need; should such a condi-
tion exist, she would take great pains to ex-
plain the factors and ends of her own motives.
If the matter involved a point concerning her-

CHARACTERISTICS 147

self, it was dropped until the time seemed more
opportune, but bob up it surely would. Her
manner of persuasion was so winning that most
people found themselves no longer opposing her
without necessarily being convinced.

Impatience, and its accompaniment, tem-
per, grounded in the quickness of her mentality
and her nervous susceptibility, were under that
splendid control so a part of her. The restless
shifting of her feet was an idiosyncrasy easily
to be observed by any one who knew her well
when she was stirred by obtuseness or any
sort of crassness. This nervousness was oftenest
the only sign of the inward storm. Untidiness,
shiftiness, procrastination, deception could rouse
her. Flashes of temper were too rare to be
spoken of, though there are family traditions
concerning them; one tells how, in childhood,
she slapped a playmate who had hit her dog,
and another that in recent years a glass of wa-
ter came dashing over a very surprised brother
who had teased her to the point of desperation.
These "saving sins" in mature years were
never let out of hand; more than once she was
known to say she would give little for the per-
son who had no temper to control.

148 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

To draw the line between character and tem-
perament is not always easy. Temperament,
we are told, is "inherited tendencies to af-
fective states." These tendencies become the
stuff of which habits and, therefore, character
are made. Temperament is the background
that determines if our life colors shall glow or
fade; as such it demands attention.

Miss Norsworthy's most striking emotional
characteristic was responsiveness, recorded over
and again. Hers was an intense nature; she
vibrated to every call of life that touched her,
as the string of a musical instrument will
through space pick up its note, if that note be
struck. For dumb things, birds and animals, the
response was immediate, heartfelt. Her love for
pets was decided. She often bemoaned having
to live in an apartment house because she could
not have a dog. Her understanding of children
has been told. Little as she professed to re-
member of her own childhood, she could easily
enter a child's world and be at home in it. A
friend of her mother's tells of a time when Miss
Norsworthy was a guest in her home. Her
young son of twelve years was the proud owner
of a billiard table, just acquired, and of the

CHARACTERISTICS 149

several grown-ups in the large party being enter-
tained in the home, his choice fell on Miss Nors-
worthy to play billiards with him, and he would
listen to no reasoning from his mother that pos-
sibly she might prefer other society and games
than his. Miss Norsworthy, at the time a pro-
fessor in Teachers College, entered with due
zest into billiard playing with the small boy, and
the mother has never forgotten the ease with
which she could turn from that serious busi-
ness to the inconsequential interests and pur-
suits of the "Olympians," as Kenneth Grahame
pityingly calls grown-ups.

Nowhere was Miss Norsworthy's respon-
siveness more evident than in her unfailing and
boundless joy in every form of beauty; flowers,
and music, and sunset skies, "called the spot of
joy into her cheek." One of the hidden sources
of pleasure in her life was her love for poetry;
the hiding it was partly a timidity born of her
mother's avowed attitude to it, and partly the
impulse we all know to hide deep the things that
mean much to us. Once in an address at Teach-
ers College, she grew bold enough to quote from
Lanier's "Marshes of Glynn," a favorite with
her; it came to one person who heard it as a

ISO NAOMI NORS WORTHY

surprise great enough to call forth the comment,
"Miss Norsworthy's using that quotation gave
me a wholly new side-light on her." For many
years she carried in the hand-bag that was in
daily use a diminutive copy of Mrs. Browning's
"Sonnets from the Portuguese," that at odd
moments she might revel in them. It was her
custom to clip current poetry from newspapers
and magazines, for a scrap-book, and then she
laughingly would wonder what her mother
might think should she chance upon the space
in the rifled magazine.

It is easy to give a false impression by put-
ting undue stress on the seriousness of Miss
Norsworthy's nature. Unquestionably the reli-
gious convictions of her mother deeply colored
the childhood years, and the hard exactions of
a too-full life left small playtime, but she was
too primal a being not to be athrob with the
joy of living. It may safely be considered the
strongest note in her letters, and they are very
characteristic. Her abounding enthusiasm, her
pleasure in the moment, her playfulness of
spirit were no more than expressions of the child
in her. Not enough has been said of that spirit
of the child, and of the utter joy it could find

CHARACTERISTICS 151

in little things; it was so strong she dreaded
lest it be misunderstood, and she outwardly re-
strained it, but beneath the surface, and with a
few people, it ran riot. She spoke of herself in
the third person as "Nomy Norsy" very often.
She did not minimize matters of momentary
interest, as people narrowly serious so often do;
her spontaneity was too great. The quality of
being "easily made glad" was among the great-
est of her attractions; it persisted as long as
consciousness held. The flowers th^t came to
her in such profusion during her illness had to
be examined for individual beauties; the bird
must be brought into her room that he might
not have to "talk to himself"; the least con-
cern in the daily lives about her must be re-
tailed to her. She was impulsive naturally, and
though contact with many situations and more
people had taught her to curb it, the play of
it was not far from the surface.

Her temperament was wholly free from any
touch of morbidness or brooding. Optimism
is a word almost too trite to use in connection
with her; its context is often suggestive of un-
thinking cheerfulness. She could always find
light in a situation however foreboding, and

152 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

took vast pleasure in looking for it. Her per-
sistence and intelligence and faith could find
the redeeming hope, an attribute which in no
small degree accounted for the light-giving
quality in her that so many people rejoiced in.
Discontent or despondence found no resting-
place in her heart. This intentness on finding
a thoroughfare to a happy solution for diffi-
culties was evidenced in her vast belief in other
people. One instance of a wretched strain put
upon her friendship still makes the, indignation
of others flare up; but she worked her way
through it, and her friendship for the offender
suffered no break. Her lack of physical vigor,
no less than the general trend of her tempera-
ment, would lead one to expect variations in
her moods, but they did not exist. Sometimes,
when worn to the last jot of bodily strength,
she would exclaim, "I'm done for"; but her
recuperative powers were great, and in a short
space the weariness would be gone. There was
in her that surprisingly strong fibre of resistance
which the joy of living was far too strong to
allow to be hampered.

In keeping with the laws of this tempera-
ment, Miss Norsworthy's reserve was very

CHARACTERISTICS 153

great. Possibly reserve is for such people a form
of nature's "protective coloration," for they
can suffer so keenly that some means of pres-
ervation is a necessity. Her reserve did not
appear on the surface, for she was so wholly
absorbed in the other person that he failed to
observe what she felt or liked was obscured
from him. The utter readiness of her sympathy,
the open allegiance to spiritual ideals, were apt
to blind one to the fact that her own self sel-
dom appeared. Her love for poetry and for mu-
sic, her vivacity, her impulsiveness, her capac-
ity for feeling, her susceptibility of imagination,
— all of what might be called a Celtic, strain
in her, was not known by many even of her
nearest friends. She was almost ashamed of
this side of her nature, and strove to hide it,
always.

Her mother's attitude had much to do with
this feeling in her, as has been remarked, and
Miss Norsworthy herself had gathered from
her environment a profound admiration for the
"firmness, tenacity, and close held-on facts"
of the typical Englishman. Her reserve was
further deepened by her shyness. The very in-
tensity of her nature helped to make her as

IS4 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

reserved as she was. The fires were hidden only,
however; they were not smothered.

After such specifications, it should hardly be
necessary to denominate hers the so-called
"artistic temperament," though there is no
doubt she would laugh at the classification.
The resonance, the enthusiasm, the imagina-
tion, the love for harmony and all forms of
beauty, the excessive sensibility in general
proclaim her so. A born lover of the good, a
seeker for perfection, is not that one an artist.'
The highest form of art lies in making people
happy; art rejoices in the harmonies to be
found or made between man and man. The
nearer the life can stay to elementary human
needs and the spiritual agencies that can satisfy
them, the closer is it to beauty. To find the
most delicate adjustments; to grow in instinc-
tive sympathy with other lives, divining their
secrets by one's own; to love the material of
to-day, to master it, and to interpret it through
imagination with sympathy and truth; to
merge all one's living into an ideal that beckons
to the highest, — surely these things mean to
be an "artist." And such an artist was Miss
Norsworthy. Without the gift of her tempera-

CHARACTERISTICS 155

ment there could not have been that fusion of
intellectual and spiritual qualities that made
her the valuable person that she was. It height-
ened the pleasure and the pain of every stimulus
from material and human contact. Often she
said she was glad she had known the alliance
with pain, for it had baptized her "into the
grace and privilege of seeing."

This catalogue is not without its contradic-
tions. Be it said again they were in the woman.
It is a fancy easy of indulgence to think of her as
reflecting a scintilla from each of the many kinds
of people she daily spent her life for, thus add-
ing new facets to her own nature. This many-
sidedness holds a suggested solution for the
elusiveness of her charm. But the listing is
utterly futile. The "impossible task" yet re-
mains, for the "pulse of the machine" stirs not,
the image is wooden. Beyond it calls the mem-
ory of her as she was, a "Presence that will not
be put by."

VIII

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS

It may be argued that no line should be
drawn between a person's characteristics and
his attitudes and beliefs, and yet certainly in
the latter is far more conscious choice and will-
ing than in the former; the one may be called
individual, the other personal. Felix Adler
says: "The individual in so far as ethicized is
a personality. Empirical man with his defects
and his qualities, is an individual; empirical
man in so far as he is transformed in subjection
to the rational ideal is a personality. An individ-
ual has value, a personality has worth." With
the worth-whileness of the ideals that made Miss
Norsworthy a personality, then, despite the
cost of inevitable repetition, this chapter shall
deal in the hope that it may lead to a more pene-
trating insight into the nature of the precious-
ness of the ethical aims that made her life
worth while on its own account, that gave her
personality.

Contrary terms descriptive of certain of her

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 157

attitudes and beliefs at once spring to mind,
terms not in themselves paradoxical, but sur-
prising as existing in the same person. For ex-
ample, her gentleness and forbearance might
cause one to think her a pacifist, whereas she
was a believer in the "rooted bellicosity" of the
race, and war she could justify; what for lack
of a better name has been termed "mysticism"
in her might lead one to think her an idle
"dreamer of dreams," whereas in practice she
was so much of a pragmatist that she deserved
to be called by H. G. Wells's word, an "effi-
cient"; her sympathy, grounded on her "best
insight and best love" was so broad that it might
impel one to think her a socialist in the best
sense whereas she was a confirmed individualist.
That these contrasts are among the zest-giving
qualities of all unusual natures is a common-
place. An harmonious combination she was of
individuality and personality, of value and of
worth.

Miss Norsworthy's ideals centered about her
profound belief that the individual life is only
noble, only worthy, as it strives to harmonize
and perfect its triune nature, the volitional,
intellectual, and spiritual. Through striving

iS8 'NAOMI NORSWORTHY

comes strength. The spiritual is the illuminating
and inspiring power without which there can
be no hope of laying hold upon the essential,
the eternal. It is the life of the spirit alone that
can impart life. The intuitive, the non-dis-
cursive, in human hearts deeply interested and
concerned her. Here she thought is to be found
life's truest and best, to be revealed step by
step to all whom reverent knowledge and sym-
pathetic insight enable to find the way. By
what radiates from the "imprisoned splendor"
within the hopes for man's highest destiny are
warmed and strengthened. Just as loving the
truth brings one nearer the true, even so loving
the spiritual brings us nearer the spirit. The
fairest and finest in will and intellect are pos-
sible as the two are vitalized by an absolute
devotion to spiritual ideals, in themselves
"oracles of vital Deity, attesting the Here-
after." Life's highest mission is to bring into
vital glow the divine in the human; this mis-
sion has been the glory and the dream of all
great personalities since the world began, reach-
ing its highest fulfillment in the God-man,
Christ. The cardinal principle of her belief was
that the compelling duty of every human life

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 159

is consciously and ceaselessly to mould person-
ality after the Ideal of Him who brought "new
feeling fresh from God," Who taught what
faith is, what service is, what consecration is.
Only the soul striving through belief in the
beauty and strength of this ideal to express in
daily deeds and maybe homely tasks the prompt-
ings of the "Vision splendid" can hope to tread
the "King's highway" and to steady others
therein.

With the blight of unfaith she had small pa-
tience. She felt that the doubts that can arise
from the bare conclusions of the intellect should
be met and repelled by the sharp challenge of
the intuitive side which can "know that it
knows," though the intellect may not under-
stand; this challenge may be firmly based on
conviction not to be gainsaid, won in self-
abandonment to the service of the Christ-ideal.
To give one's self without question or reserva-
tion to sharing His tasks through consecrated
living is to find a satisfying answer to the pallid
doubts of the intellect, and throw us in noble
trust upon

"That still ray
Which strikes out from you, how, you cannot tell,
And vrhfi you know not, . . . [and]
Goes straight and fast as ligilt, and higb as God."

i6o NAOMI NORSWORTHY

The underlying principle of all her attitudes
and beliefs, therefore, was the ethical or reli-
gious one. With all the strength of her intense
nature she felt " as long as any man exists, there
is some need for him." That "need" she be-
lieved to be found in the inter-dependence of
human creatures. The true aim is consecrated
service, through self-renunciation; by influen-
cing the lives of others, releasing their highest
excellence, one may hope to be in turn stimu-
lated by them into a fresher and higher excel-
lence. "To love more and more the beauty of
what is right, to turn with increasing faith from
the imperfection in us all to the Perfection
above ua all" was her unvarying desire. The
passion for service showed in her daily attitude
towards all men; it was the most cherished aim
that she ever knew. She believed that all life is
progression, upward and steady, as one strives
with all his intellect and will and aspirations for
the best brought by each day; this never-ending
aspiration, this endless endeavor, is inseparable
from a spirit life of true vitality. Take life as
it comes, work with it and through it, transform
it, use it as a mighty lever that to-morrow
may better to-day's opportunity for a greater

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS i6i

service. She never mistook the material with
which she worked, nor sought to over-spiritual-
ize it. There are lines in Browning's "Saul"
she especially liked:

"How good is man's life, the mere living! how fit to employ
i All the heart and the soul and the senses, forever in joy."

Death is not the end, but the opening to a
broader field where our efforts shall be far freer;
but to-day is no time to revel in anticipation,
only to live. In some unknown way, our hope
for progress in the Hereafter depends on our
desire to fulfill the struggle here and on our suc-
cess in it. Nor does success as the world knows
it and believes in it matter at all. " By the pain-
throb," by the struggle may progress be won.
The mere achievement avails nothing. A de-
sired end once attained, it is worse than useless
if the strength overcome in its winning be not
used to press on to yet broader fields of oppor-
tunity for service. No victory can be accounted
such unless it holds within itself inspiration for
a fresh battle. The fruit includes the seeds;
another undertaking larger, finer, must spring
from the old, or decay has somewhere struck
in. The striving should always be for a defin-
ite, clearly planned aim. First of all, there must

i62 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

be recognition of the common bond of human-
ness. "How very human we all are, and how
much alike," she says in one of her letters. To
recognize this alikeness means to enter more
perfectly into the lives of others, to make others
feel the oneness of our ends and desires, to
freshen in us the conception of the inspiration
that we may draw from them, and to increase
our desire for mutual justice and for sympathy.
One's right to individualism, one's need for
the proper kind of individualism, must not be
forgotten. Possessing, as Miss Norsworthy did,
the power to waive herself and become at one-
ness with the person for the moment command-
ing her, to believe that she effaced herself would
be easy. She did not. Merged as she was in a
world of intensely demanding social interests,
she yet preserved her full freedom; loyal as she
was to her friends, seemingly great as was her
need for them, none the less she lived in true
and independent reliance on her Source of In-
spiration and Its leading. In the fealty she ren-
dered to the altars where worshipping she drew
her nameless strength, she asked no one's coun-
sel, was moved by no one's opinion. That a life
may be outwardly devoted to scientific profes-

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 163

sional ends, and inwardly to beautiful harmony
with exalted spiritual aims she daily proved.
Her individualism showed itself also in minor
ways. Solitude as well as society appealed to
her. She rejoiced in being alone, small chance
though she ever had to exercise the enjoyment.
At holiday times she liked to go to seaside or
mountains with a long-known friend whom she
could treat as she might a book, find pleasure
in or ignore at will. She could "lie fallow" all
day long; stretched at full length on the sands,
or in the shade, for hours she would revel in the
unresting waters, or the beauty of a quiet world.
At such times she would seek unfrequented
places where she might be alone, and in un-
disturbed quiet store up the energy to be spent
so extravagantly later. Individualistic was her
attitude of readiness for the call of the new
moment. "I keep myself obedient and ready,"
says La Farge. Is it not the expectant prayer
of every true artist? For artist she truly w:as,
one who wrought spiritual ends from material
things. She felt that each hour was distinc-
tively full of its own earnest, its own right to
be served, and one should hold himself open,
"obedient and ready" for its claim. It was

i64 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

largely this attitude which enabled her to give
herself whole-heartedly to one person and one
thing at a time. A pathetic incident of the last
hours of her life bore testimony to this desire.
In one of the flashes of consciousness that came,
she asked, "Where am I, and what has hap-
pened?" On being reassured, she said con-
tendedly, "Oh, yes, I remember. All right; now
I am ready for the next thing." Strange it is,
bearing in mind her sensitivity and nervous-
ness, — that fact already noted, — that where
people were concerned, she was never hurried.
"There is always time enough," she said; and
she would either find it or make it. One way
she compassed this end was in being "before-
handed." She planned each day, and far ahead.
Believing in ample margins, she did not "run
near the edge" of anything. Her well-thought-
out plans were often upset, for she dealt with
too many unexpected people and situations for
them not to be; but her adaptability stood her
in good stead, and she was never lost "to find
a way."

One of her firmest beliefs was an unbounding
faith in the goodness of every human soul, how-
ever hidden. To seek out this goodness, this

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 165

innate worth, and bring it to the light that
it may react on other lives and in its turn be
re-inspired by them is of course the essence of
every lofty religion. Without escape, this aim
imposes on the individual who follows it a will-
ingness for self-sacrifice, and not willingness
alone, but impelling desire. So strong was this
desire in Miss Norsworthy that it was often said
that she seemed anxious to be consumed, so
untiringly did she sacrifice herself to meet the
demands of service as she saw it. Her passion
for people had its roots in the wish to seek out
the worth of the individual soul, "to sustain it,
and be sustained by it." The poet says, "Pub-
lish my name and hang up my picture as that
of the tenderest lover." Such was she, in all
truth. Month in, month out, year in, year out,
she poured forth her great love for her kind.
Whatever of dismay, or perplexity or worry;
whatever of doubt or wish or plan; whatever of
pleasure or promise or anticipation came to the
thousands in her busy world, all must be taken
to her for counsel, for sharing, for inspiration.
She smoothed out tangles ; she brought hope and
courage and resolution. The compelling force
of her responsiveness and sympathy was "mys-

i66 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

tic, wonderful." People found themselves speak-
ing freely to her of matters they scarcely dared
think of; they brought her personal concerns
of the most intimate nature. Whatsoever was
in her of counsel, of devoted interest, of the
sense of caring, of human nearness, was lav-
ished on them. Time for her own recreation
passed; time for eating passed; time for rest
passed; all were unnoticed by her when these
claims came. Hour after hour she stood at
"attention." Her desires mattered not; her
weariness mattered not; her physical sacrifice
mattered not. Indeed she never thought of her-
self at all. People, in her mind, alone mattered.
Such a response was the only one with which
she met the violent remonstrances from her
family and close friends, when dinner-time -jyould
pass, the evening would pass, and she had not
come in from her office. Little did the indi-
vidual who yielded to the wonder of her sym-
pathy know how many appeals like his she met
and answered during the day. Of weariness or
impatience she gave no sign. Possibly she was
conscious of neither. Expending to the last
ounce of her strength and time, Miss Nors-
worthy stood a devoted follower of One who

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 167

served "unto the least." She gave freely, fully,
fairly, finally, gave without stint and without
price. Generous? Sympathetic? One can but
wish for other words to express the wealth of
her giving, — unhesitating, unquestioning, un-
restrained. A primal instinct this prodigality
has already been called. She had to give; her
nature demanded it. Surely the world is richer
for the knowledge that its bounds could com-
pass one so free from all the laws of advantage
and of self. There is a freer breath, a fresher
belief that

"God's in His heaven
All's right with the world."

It is not hard to imagine what the attitude
of a personality like Miss Norsworthy's would
be towards friendship. Believing that it, too,
is subject to the laws of evolution, she thought
that it grows or decays as the soul goes forward
or lags behind. To enjoy her friendship was to
be educated in what has been called "the great-
est art in life." Those favored ones whom she
had admitted to the claim were never far from
her thoughts ; she needed to share their lives, to
share hers with them. Their misfortunes, their
joys were hers. The lavishness of her nature

i68 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

was nowhere shown more strikingly than in the
thousand ways she found to give of her thoughts
and self to her friends. The utmost of hers was
theirs.

It is remarkable that Miss Norsworthy could
keep her generous faith in human nature. She
came into intimate association with so large a
variety of people. The number of students at
Teachers College who applied to her for finan-
cial help is unbelievable. This one from China
had not received his remittance on which to
get home, the end of the year approached, and
the exigencies of the high cost of living in New
York appalled; that one had laid plans for such
an income for this month of the year and it
had failed for these and these reasons, — could
Miss Norsworthy help.? Miss Norsworthy al-
ways could. There is no instance known where
such an appeal was made to her in vain. It is
not necessary to say most of these unrecorded
loans were repaid; but some of them were not.
She could find justification for forgetfulness of
them, when she was twitted by the one or two
who found out, accidentally, about a few of
these beneficences. It may be questioned if
this justification be friendship, but surely it is

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 169

in the larger sense an optimistic loyalty to belief
in the faith and well-meaning of people in gen-
eral, and is not this the true attitude of a friend ?
Her recognition of mastery in any field was
instantaneous, and she cherished a chance to
come in touch with an "epoch-making thinker"
whose fresh initiative could broaden her outlook.
In inspiration of this kind she found rare de-
light. One of the never-failing sources of her
life was the stimulus from such a master-mind
with which she came in almost daily contact.
For the gratitude she owed that leader and
thinker she felt unable to find words. With her
equals there was the freedom of intercourse
wherein she found much comfort and help.
She invariably liked to "talk things over" with
friends, sometimes to clear her own ideas, again
to get new ones. Her ability to see things in
the large, added to her excellent judgment, made
her a person valuable for others to seek for con-
ference. To those in inferior posts she was very
gracious without being the least patronizing.
Repeatedly during her last illness an unknown
woman, poorly clad, appeared at the door of
the apartment to ask, "How is Miss Nors-
worthy?" and in answer to a request for her

I70 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

name, said "She would not know me, nor my
name. She was good to me, and I want to know
how she is." Another like instance is told of a
woman wandering about the halls of Teachers
College, seeking help to raise a subscription
fund to cure Miss Norsworthy according to an
advertisement she had found.

Miss Norsworthy's attitude towards her own
achievements has been already spoken of. She
greatly feared the retardation of complacence,
feeling it to be one of the peculiar dangers of
the individual after the flush of youth's gener-
ous enthusiasms has passed.- Dreading self-
gratulation, or any approach to aggrandizement,
she was a person difficult to tell pleasant things
about herself. Her manner of cutting off all such
expressions bordered on abruptness. If the strug-
gle only avails, one's successes are not to be kept
in the foreground, lest one find it easy to dwell
upon them and grow satisfied. To plume one's
self in the least degree, even secretly, on what-
ever he may have done is deadly, since it is vain
to try to hide inward thoughts. "As a man
thinketh in his heart, so he is." The one way
to seem free from weakness, such as vanity for
instance, is to be free from it in one's inmost

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 171

thoughts. Habits of thoughts no less than of
action are character. All pretense is vain,
for the inward always becomes the outward.
Character manifests itself indirectly as well as
directly, therefore let no man dare hope to pro-
fess one thing and live another. The actual
achievement may seem squalid, or splendid;
back of it is the transfiguration, attained in
terms of the animating ideal, and the atten-
dant effort imposed by it. This belief in the
virtue of the struggle was the mainspring of
her optimism. Regret or remorse had no place
in her scheme of things; there is no time for
either, she held, because the one sensible thing
to do is to set about a new venture or a fresh
emprise with the old. The nearest approach she
ever made to pessimism came when there had
been a crash under worked-for hopes or hu-
man expectations; she would give a funny,
deprecating little chuckle, and say, "Things
are queer"; and that ended it. "Faith and
Utopias," says William James, " are the noblest
exercise of human reason, and no one with a
spark of reason in him will sit down fatalisti-
cally before the croaker's picture." In her prac-
tical good sense no less than in her belief in the

172 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

potency of the struggle in and for itself can be
found cause for Miss Norsworthy's unwilling-
ness to "sit down fatalistically" before any-
thing. If one would but strive to-day in "the
effulgence of the universal Reason" with all his
will and the ideals of his soul, to-morrow must
bring its bright morning of a greater day. Be-
cause life is progression; because each one is ade-
quate to the task to which he has been called
by the Spirit of the world; because nothing can
harm save unfaith and irresolution; because the
smallest act lays hold on the Infinite, let us heed
only the Voices that bid us press on to the ever-
widening field, the ever-broadening opportun-
ity, the ever-greater service.

Her small faith in formulas extended over
rules and creeds. The spirit is an entity too
sacred, its freedom too necessary, to attempt to
bind it by formulation. Arouse the soul to a
realization of the vast need for service and con-
secration; let it once glimpse the spiritual signif-
icance of life, to be attained through intellect
and will and ideals, then no puny circumstance
can restrain it, no "shades of the prison house"
frighten from its high destiny. For this highest
and best, the spirit needs only love and conse-

SOME ATTITUDES AND BELIEFS 173

cration. All things else come as step by step
the pathway leads always into broader and
more fruitful fields.

Enough has been said to demonstrate how
truly was idealism the keynote of all Miss Nors-
worthy's being. The sacred altars of her life
had heaped upon them flames of devotion and
sacrifice that lighted paths for many others.
To learn all one can, to do all one can, to love
all one can, — that is true service, man at his
highest. Only as the individual is willing to
serve for others and with them, without fear
or unfaith, can he hope to open up bigger and
better standing-ground for himself and them.
To struggle endlessly, even though one may be
consumed; to be willing never to arrive; to
scorn all expedience; to reduce to-day's prob-
lem to a rational solution, never minding to-
morrow's; to learn the Christ-ideal and live it:
these ideals she lived day by day. She was a
mystic, one of those seers that in every age and
clime have possessed seeing and understanding
hearts.

Lacking the too-usual incapacity of the mystic
for exact thought, possibly because of scien-
tific training that demanded exactitude, yet

174 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

she had all the mystic's faculty of intuition, of
perception of human relations and of spiritual
values. She touched the sounding "thread of
Beauty that runs through all and doth all
unite" with the exalted hope that the music
there awakened should stir slumbering lives
as a bugle call to duty. She had learned stand-
ards of the beautiful, the enduring, the worth-
while, all hidden from most of us earth-bound
creatures, and she found her life-joy in follow-
ing them.

Death itself was in her valuation truly "the
great Adventure." It meant only the narrow
door through which we pass to the Larger Life
where a greater opportunity is given us to know
and to do and to love. Freed from all the ham-
pering limitations of the physical, from the
dread wrench of pain, from the bitterness of
disappointment or the gloom of defeat, the soul
is allowed to work out fully what it did here
only feebly. Browning, whom she well loved,
has best expressed it for her:

"What was, shall live as before;
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound;
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more;
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round."

IX

BITS OF LETTERS

Because of their intimate note, peculiarly
valuable and vital to those persons to whom
they were written, bits of but few of Miss Nors-
worthy's letters can be published. Oftenest the
answers to appeals for her sympathy or en-
couragement, her letters are either full of details
uninteresting save to her and the one whose
need she was answering, or else too minutely
personal to be given to other eyes. The rare
tact, or sympathy, or responsiveness, — call
it by what word one may, the quality is still
missed, — that she gave with such whole-
heartedness directly at first hands, she gave
indirectly through her written words. Her let-
ters were to the one person addressed, and no
other. She entered into his concerns, his
thoughts, his hopes, to the exclusion of all else,
as she did talking to him face to face; to him
their value was great, because they voiced his
interests, but they are not for general read-

176 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

ing. An unbelievably large number have been
searched to yield the fragments given here. She
always wrote her letters in long hand, using a
secretary only for professional matters. Where
she found time for writing the many that she
did write is a question. They must have been
wedged into "corner minutes" stolen from
what should have been times for recreation or
sleep. These extracts are what the title of the
chapter indicates, bits of letters, chosen be-
cause they are characteristic, as well as because
they are humanly precious. In them will be
found no stilted effort, no attempt at effect,
only the "simple language of the heart." The
letters of the early years which might have been
helpful in better tracing her development were
unfortunately long since destroyed; the excerpts
given are from letters of the last dozen years.
All possible references to identity and the dates
have been removed so that they might be
wholly impersonal. No effort at coherence has
been attempted, and no comments made. The
fragments speak, each with its own message,
full of the ardent sympathy and the elevated
character of the woman who wrote them.

BITS OF LETTERS 177

My letters these days are all notes written
in the midst of things, and I miss the time to
write, but even so I feel that I must not wait
for a better time to send an answer to yours
which came yesterday. I am sorry for the dis-
appointment in your new place, the more be-
cause I know how you had looked forward to
it as an advancement. But are n't you glad
to be in a post where so much hard work is to
be done? It is a tremendously important posi-
tion, with all sorts of possibilities to work out,
and may I venture to say that your time and
strength are but lessened either by looking
back with regret, or forward with dismay?
Don't waste time in regretting. You may not
have got shaken down in your new place yet,
but you have much to give. It is hard for any
of us to find his place in new surroundings, but
the fun of making the new place our place!

Let me tell you, if I may without trespassing,
that you do hide your scars pretty well, and
what a fine thing that is for anybody to be able
to do. Stoicism has its appeal for all of us I
suppose, easy though it may be to carry it too

178 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

far. If we can hide the scar, and quite forget
the wound that caused it, — maybe are strength-
ened indeed by the pain of it, — I should say
that is a thing to be proud of, and grateful for.
I remember as a child it used to be a game of
contest with us to try our physical endurance
and compare our powers with our playmates'
by seeing who could longest endure holding out
his extended arm. It has grown to typify a big
thing to me. So I should say you can "hold out
your arm" marvelously well!

College is over for this year, and because
my head has been feeling the end of things, I
am not sorry that it is. You should see how I
have been fixing my office over for next year.
I have a filing cabinet for my papers and exam,
books, and a new arrangement for my books.
I am planning to give a certain hour next year
to library work, and magazines and reviews, —
and another certain time for my study. If I
can stick better by my program, I shall find
more time for people, for that I must have,
despite your merciless words about the way I
"over-tax" myself. I am convinced my work

BITS OF LETTERS 179

lies through personal touch with people; not
all of it, perhaps not the most important part,
but nevertheless a part. I don't think you should
scold so hard. I know that my life must be
spent in service, and I am earnestly hoping for
vision to tell me which service is most worth
while. I don't dare distinguish, because I don't
know, therefore I must give as fully and freely
as I can when the demands come. All sorts of
people, all sorts of service, yes, but one thing
I do know is that to lose one's life is the only
hope for each of us, and the one way to lose it
is in the lives of others.

I am glad that your trip is proving such an
enjoyable one. Ireland must be fascinating!
We did not go into Ireland at all, but are re-
serving that pleasure for our next trip. Is n't
Oxford wonderful.'' and the Rhine, aiid Heidel-
berg.^ It is the age of all those places that gives
them much of their power of attraction, and
that of course means their numerous associa-
tions.

Our summer is quite the opposite of yours
in that we are lost to the world and people

i8o NAOMI NORS WORTHY

among the mountains of New Hampshire. This
farm is prettily situated, with mountains on
all sides. Our little shack is far enough from
the farmhouse to give us all the privacy we
want, and yet near enough for us not to feel
lonely. It is on the edge of a large pinewoods,
facing the mountains. We sit on the little
porch and watch the moon rise over the moun-
tain-tops, or the lightning play along their sum-
mits, and we grow silent with the beauty of it
all. Our hammocks are swung in the nearby
woods. We had intended having them on the
porch, but the woods proved too attractive,
and now they are under the tall fragrant pines.
I am finding sleeping out of doors even more
enjoyable than I anticipated. To watch the
silver mystery of the setting moon, or the
golden glory of the dawn, or just the quiet radi-
ance of the myriad stars, — all is a joy. All day
long we spend in the woods, with blankets and
pillows, sewing, or books, or writing material.
The rest and peace and fragrance of it is enter-
ing my very soul. Surely health and strength
must come from such a summer.

BITS OF LETTERS i8i

Don't bother about the changes you find
there after your long absence, or maybe things
found that you wish had changed, but you find
still the same. You seem to resent change al-
ways, and yet it is in you as well as in others,
and you would not have it different I know.
Any growth must mean change, and more room,
and a bigger outlook! Personal irritation is so
slight a thing if along with it comes the chance
to work, if only the chance to work from under
the cause of the irritation. You are not easily
overcome. Who knows but your "stately man-
sions" are already a-building, that your lower
vaulted past is already being shut from out
your view by just these changes you so cry out
against.^

Indeed I do rejoice with you over your suc-
cessful year, for successful is any year when
you can feel you have come closer to a single
life that needs you. None of us can dare let
stand any wall that seems to bar us from others
who can sustain us, or whom we can sustain.
And I know, too, that the very success this
year has brought you must deepen your regret.

1 82 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

or rather sorrow is the better word, for having
accepted a call to such distant fields. Your
grief at leaving your home for so long, and all
the associations you so love there is but nat-
ural. I don't feel so bad though for either you
or your sister. She is married, and after all,
that must count a lot, for that is the biggest
thing, and for you, — why I have so much faith
in your capacity and ability I feel that you will
find excellent adaptation anywhere, however
foreign the field may be to what you have
hitherto known.

As I write I am sitting on a stone, with my
back against a stone fence, under a great maple
tree. In the immediate foreground is a rolling
field covered with apple trees artistically old,
and nodding buttercups and paint-brush. Be-
yond are the mountains, three tiers of them,
covered with their mystery-full blue haze.
A robin, drunk with the joy of his summer of
life, too, has been gaily telling us all morning
what is in his heart. The music of it all rings
through my days, and the one possible worry is
to decide which of it I love best. There is the

BITS OF LETTERS 183

purple-blue of the mountains, — the silvery
sheen of giant maples, the ever-changing light
and shade of shifting clouds, the tall straight
pines with their blue-black tops, — the sough
of the wind through them, the fragrance of
the balsam smell, with nobody but me and
the robin to tell about it. I wonder if I can
stick out trying to; it is not a morning to write
letters, but just to feel.

I brought numbers of books up here to the
woods with me, — some frivolous, some serious,
a half dozen to be reviewed for the " Record,"
a paper for the National Congress of Mothers,
two addresses, one each for the North Carolina
and Alabama Teachers' Associations, and lots
of sewing. When, pray, do you fancy I shall
find time to do any of that sort of thing with
the Heart of the Wild calling to me? The city
is the place to work in, not here where to think,
or to attempt any sort of work, seems a protest
against Nature and the indolence of summer.

"* I am writing in the woods, all about me sweet-

i84 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

fern, knee high, the flecking light-and-shadow
patches of bright sunshine over us, and birds
calling to their mates in the trees above. I like
it! Yesterday we were caught in a thunder-
storm and I had such a good time. The feel of
the rain beating in my face, the sound of it
on the leaves made me glad to be alive. We
brought home as booty from our wet tramp
two branches of flaming, riotous-red maple
leaves, and have fastened them to the front
piazza where they shine out against the brown
of the bark finish, advance colors of autumn's
cohorts. Every day that passes fills me with a
great longing to stretch out my play-time here
where there is so much to joy in.

It is the time of day I love best, the twilight,
maybe because it has in it the minor notes, the
slow-dying sunset that mirrors floating pink
clouds in the bosom of the lake, the drowsy
good-night calling of the birds, the far-away
sounds of cow-bells. Somebody once said to
me that so much of life is in the minor key that
most people instinctively turn away from the
minor notes in nature, but I don't believe it.

BITS OF LETTERS 185

There is so much peace and quiet and comfort.
It suggests the Valley of Silence.

I have been living with Browning all summer.
It is such a joy to go over and over his things
that I love. Sometime will you read "Saul"
to me again? I like that one best aloud. And
this reminds me of a question you ask in a re-
cent letter that I think I did not answer, — if
I had ever tried to find self-expression in poetry.
Odd! While you must have been writing, that
very topic was being discussed with us here.
I was asked what above all else I'd choose to
be, and I said a poet, and was promptly laughed
at for my frankness. I have never tried it, but
above all else I would like to have the gift to
express the inner Spirit of Life and Beauty, and
that seems possible only in poetry. It is n't
strange that I have kept this side of me so well
hidden, after all. It is possibly true, what you
say, that few people know it is there, but from
early childhood up, I have been schooled to
hide it. Mother has no patience with poetry,
most of it, or sentiment, or any sort of child-
ishness, as I have told you before, and I have

i86 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

always been ashamed of what I knew was in-
side, and have kept it under lock and key. And
I am glad I have.

^ What you write me of deeply concerns

me. Her struggles always tear my heart. I
wrote her at once on receipt of your letter and
hope she will tell me freely how things are. Is
it hopeless, as you say.? I don't believe it! If
she would only take the right attitude and hold
it, but it seems she has n't so far found the way.
I believe she can and will. You know how
firmly I believe in absolute frankness. Well, one
trouble lies there and the other cause of her
failures seems to be pride. Between us, maybe
we can help. I am so glad you wrote me, and
surely the two of us can do something.

Certainly I know what you are going through.
No one in all the world who really loves his
ideals enough to stand by them could fail to
know. It is the common fate of us all some-
time or other to have his deepest ideals scoffed
at, or maybe not that, but held lightly, and have

BITS OF LETTERS 187

people say, "Yes, oh, yes, of course," and look
at you as if you were rather to be pitied, and
then change the subject. So few understand,
and yet it must be so. A sense of values comes
to any of us only through specialized training,
in the light of a desired end. The greatest of all
art creations are but heaps of paint on canvas,
or concatenated sounds, entirely void of all
meaning unless one has within him a culti-
vated sense that attaches right values. This is
true in the spiritual as well as the artistic world.
You quoted to me once something about its
being a phantasy of Plato's that understanding
souls were once "parts of the same star"; there
is something in the idea that there must be far-
reaching spiritual kinship before there can be
perfect understanding. But why fret when you
seem to miss it? People are as difficult to each
of us to understand and we fail them just as you
complain of being failed. When these thoughts
come to me, I begin to look askance at my own
"tuning-fork."

"Weigher of words" you call me. Yes, I
plead guilty to the charge, if charge of guilt it

1 88 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

is. It is only fair; if others judge as I do, and
believe exactly what is said, then it is necessary
to weigh words. Things get awry if a body can't
take on simple faith, or give in simple faith,
the coin of conversation, even its small change.
Once juggling begins, it can never be told what
is spurious and what is n't. Why not everybody
"weigh words".?

After your letter asking me to see to find

out if there was anything possible to be done,
I made a desperate effort to do so, and finally
succeeded. You say I must be frank as to what
I think of her present mental attitude. I don't
like to! But you are a friend of longer and more
intimate standing than I, so I suppose it is but
right I should say this to you, in the hope you
may find some way to help her next year. You
already know as much as I do as to how she
has let herself brood and grow pessimistic, only
/ don't believe she can't help it! All I say to
her falls on deaf ears. I feel as though I was
beating my head against a stone wall. She plays
with her emotions, and sometimes I think poses
for sympathy. You have known her so much

BITS OF LETTERS 189

longer than I, and know what an odd mixture
of good and evil, how complex and contradic-
tory she is, and yet, that is but saying she is
human. You will see from the whole tone of
my letter than I am impatient with her, and
st> I am. My fear always is lest too much sym-
pathy may weaken the recipient, and that is
very far from being any sort of help. To know
how to give, and keep one's self out of it! Mean-
time, we two will keep pegging away and see
what the "eternal dropping" can accomplish.

To-day is my birthday, and a very happy
one it has been. My friends are so good to me,
and it has power "to make my heart rejoice."
With one of my greetings to-day came this —
don't you like it.''

" Since to us all the years must come.
May yours fall soft and slow,
As shaken by a bee's low hum
The rose-leaves waver, sweetly dumb,
Down to their mates below."

Somehow I don't mind birthdays; cer-tainly
I could not if all are happy as this one. So
much of life is a foretaste of what is to come.
There is so much added joy each year to be glad

I90 NAOMI NORS WORTHY

for, the gift of friendship, and the faith in hu-
man hearts, and all the things that spur us on,
for which there are no names. The path stretches
through the years shining and bright, not all
smooth of course I know, but all worth while,
and I'm glad the end is hidden.

I am very happy to-day. Something hap-
pened yesterday to heap up the Joy-fire in my
heart, and the warmth has lasted all through
the hours since. I feel that I must go out and
live and serve in some measure worthy of this
great wonderful, Shining Real Thing we call
Life. No, I shan't tell you what it is; — you
might smile and call me an "enthusiastic child"
in that superior way of yours, but were you
here, I should tell you all about it and so out-
talk you that you would have to agree with me
that the Happening is all I am trying to tell
you it is!

^ I have just had such a glorious week-end in
the country with dear Miss Dodge. I came
back loaded down with flowers and my office

BITS OF LETTERS 191

is full of them as I write. I foun,d some four-
leaf clovers ! Are you enough of a child to know
what I felt over them ? If you will say yes, you
shall have one of the very ones I found. It was
such fun to get down in the grass, close to old
Earth and with my nose just above the fresh
greenness, search out the little "luck blossoms."
Such a wealth of blooms, too. I had some lemon
verbena to wear with the clovers, and they
kept me intoxicated the rest of my visit.

. To-day frightened me by coming into

my class and staying all of ten minutes. It's
an awful feeling. I don't know for a second
whether I shall finish my next sentence or not.
I don't see why he's following me up so closely
this year. Those graduate classes overwhelm
me, anyway. I wish I could creep into some
little backwoods village and be lost so I would
n't have to teach graduate classes with men
in them that don't want to be taught by a
woman, and on top of it, to have to be visited!
I wish I could be a rural school teacher in the
deepest of the Wilds for just a bit of a time!
But don't you worry about me. You know how

192 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

my foolish natural shrinking seizes me full some-

times.

You must feel the loss of your horse keenly.
Animals do make a place for themselves, don't
they? I know you will feel the hurt, for you
have talked too much about him for me not to
know how you regarded him " almost a member
of the family." I envy your having had a horse,
for I have always longed for one. "When my
ship comes in" though, I shall consider the
wisdom of a "Fordette" instead. Can't you
imagine me a speed-demon ? I do love to go fast
in a car, and the temptation would be very
great! Maybe that is one of the things that
keeps my ship so far out at sea.

My work is heavy. Preparation takes so
much time, and office work goes on just the
same. I meet four hundred and eighty different
students every week, and I am not learning to
hitch up their names and faces fast enough. The
heavy work annoys me only because it fills up
my time beyond what I could wish. Easy of

BITS OF LETTERS 193

access I must be, for people do not readily seek
another who is already occupied with other
things. To do what there is to do and not be-
come drowned in details that do not matter;
to "register" for what seems the bigger part,
— that is what I must get my proper perspec-
tive for. The first of the year is always hard,
so be patient with my complaints till I can find
my way through the Mass of Demands.

Mother is having such a fine time at Asbury.
Two ladies have adopted her and she is thor-
oughly enjoying it. One of them is a rampant
"militant," and they are having a fine time
arguing. You can fancy mother, she always
enjoys meeting new people so much, and is al-
ways interesting and interested. I wish I had
more of that in me, but then — you know
Mother, fine and true and loyal somebody that
she is!

The North Carolina teachers want me to take
charge of their four meetings, lead the discus-
sions and give one address before the General

194 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Session. I said I would do it, though I don't
exactly know what is expected of me. They
asked about compensation, and as I had no idea

■(vhat it should be, I wrote Professor and

guess what he said in reply.? Fifty dollars a day
and expenses! Of course I shall tell them no
such thing, but shall leave it entirely with them.
This is the third State Teachers' Association
I shall have to do this year. I enjoy meeting
old T. C. people at them, but the trips are
pretty tiresome.

I am already getting frightened over that
Teachers College dinner at the Superintendents'
meeting. I am afraid that there will be a num-
ber of our faculty women to go down; Phila-
delphia is more easily accessible than so many
of the meeting-places. I invariably get stirred
up over those dinners, silly though I know it is
in me. There is always a chance they may not
be a success. My, but I draw a free breath once
they are done with! I wonder if I shall ever
learn to do that sort of thing easily? Those
Superintendents' meetings are pleasant enough
after the dinners are oflF my hands, because it
is so much fun to see so many old students that
I have no chance to run upon elsewhere. I have

BITS OF LETTERS 195

the nicest scheme planned for a good time; how
much will you give me to know what it is?
Maybe you will be part of it.

You cannot guess what I have been about
this glorious July morning. Making Christmas
presents. The summer time is the only time I
have to sew, and it is a pleasure to be about it.
If one of them should stray your way, you must
not examine my stitches, for I remember what
beautiful ones you make, and mine are n't
specially creditable to Mother's training. There
is too much to see and hear in these creature-
haunted woods to be tied down in one's thought
to sewing, even when a Christmas present is
involved. To think of Christmas time and plan
for it though is always one of the greatest hap-
pinesses the vacation days hold for me, because
there is time to think out things that a body
never has when the season is with us.

How do you like this "Workaday Creed"?

"The Earth, my Mother;
Mankind, my Brother;
Thou, God, my Father;
Dear Life, my Lover;

My works, my Children. ' ''

Sleep and Amen."

196 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

I love Saturday and Sunday. To-day I have
had such a good lazy time reading magazines, and
Mrs. Jameson's "Characteristics of Women."
She is a keen analyst and I enjoy her though
I do not always agree with what she says. I
always wish I knew my Shakespeare better. If
I did, I've an idea Mrs. Jameson and I might
agree even less. You will like this little bit from
Dr. van Dyke I came on as much as I do:

"Self is the only power that can ever bind the soul,
Love is the only angel that can bid the gates unroll;
And when he comes to call thee, arise and follow fast.
His way may lie through darkness, but it leads to light at last."

Don't think any assurance of friendship could
ever be commonplace or unnecessary. All of
us want them, and some things, you know, can
never grow old. Friendship is one of the old-
new things, part of the Beauty echoing in bird-
songs, and flowers, and music, and the stillness
of the woods, the majesty of the stars, and all
that Vast World that is forever nameless.
Surely you do not think any voicing of that can
be unnecessary.?

BITS OF LETTERS 197

Don't worry, whatever happens, partly be-
cause it takes it out of you even worse than
disappointment, partly because it more nearly
assures what you fear. To give one's self to the
Right as far as one can see and then quietly let
go and leave the outcome, — is not that all
any of us can do? I believe the prospect is far
better than you think, but at best, you can
find much to keep up your courage and "muscle"
with, while waiting. If you just will put aside
worry and fear I shall be very grateful. Ab-
solute frankness and candor is the salvation.
Be comforted; there is much Help and much
Use.

The years ahead are so bright with hope. My
heart sings "behind its wall of sense" on this
New Year's Day, and part of its song is a greet-
ing for you. How thankless we both are, you
and I, ever to wail when things go wrong. I
know that I am, for so much more than life
gives to most people has come to me. I don't
see this morning how things can ever look the
least gray-toned again. Do you know a little
poem ending thus.""

198 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

"0 faint of heart! storm-beaten, this rain will gleam to-morrow,
Flame within the columbine, and jewel on the thorn.
Heaven in the forget-me-not; though sorrow now be sorrow,
Yet sorrow shall be beauty in the magic of the morn."

My trip all day has been such a lovely one.
At first the country was gently rolling, great
daisy fields of sweeping white, with here and
there women and children in sunbonnets, pick-
ing wild strawberries. Then came patches of
woodland, with glimpses of mountain laurel in
cool-green depths, rambling roads, disappear-
ing through the trees, that made me long for a
horse and good company to follow them; a little
stream running beside the railroad is crossed
and re-crossed and crossed again, as we climb
up and up into the mountains to Horse-Shoe
Curve, built on the side of one mountain and
back in the side of the opposite one. Below,
the great reservoir with turquoise blue-green
water and all around hills, hills. The golden
brown of the mountain streams sends back the
flashing sunset as I write. Looking back, the
track is a long brown gash in the darkening
green hill-sides, then we go through a tunnel and
out on the other side into the smoke of a busy

BITS OF LETTERS 199

factory town. It has been worth the long tire^
some trip to have these pictures spread before
me all day.

Pride causes so many of our failures. I can-
not tell you how earnestly I wish it were in me
to say some word of help or comfort. Forget
my foolish words about the sentimentalist.
You would not have understood them as you
did had I said them and not written them. 'But
you know what I mean ! The one thing for any
of us to strive for is ability to find and live the
great and beautiful truth of God, to "surrender
to the Infinite and follow God's path and God's
truth." What matters the price if one gets his
desired value.? Whatever is of the Eternal can
have no price not worth paying gladly, many
times over.

Yes, you have heard correctly about the offer
of the deanship of the Women's School at the
Carnegie Technical Institute. The offer has
unsettled me for days, nor am I quite sure yet
what I should do. It appears to be such a

200 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

tremendous opportunity for service. And the
opportunity to "make a name" seems almost
unlimited. But the great question I have faced
is if it is a larger'one for me. You know admin-
istrative work appeals to me very little, and I
somehow feel that I belong in the classroom
rather than in an ofHce. My problem of deci-
sion was not lessened by the fact that mother
wanted me to go, and some of my best friends,
men here on the T.C. Staff also advised it. But
I am not going! Wait till I tell you why before
you think I have decided too quickly, and
maybe you will agree with me. — First, the
schools, because of the location of Pittsburgh,
must remain largely local in influence; second,
administrative work is physically so wearing,
I doubt the ability of my nerves to stand it.
The life of service of administration officers in
the colleges of the United States is under twelve
years — what would mine be? Though the
field may be broader, a fact that I doubt, yet
I am not measuring up to what is here to be
done; why should I seek a broader field wheii
I am not adequately filling this one? The feel-
ing that I belong here is so strong that I must
abide by it; and it comes back and back. I just

BITS OF LETTERS 201

can't get away from It. If I am meant to do that
kind of work, He will send other openings.
Teaching Is in every way much bigger than ad-
ministrative work; one comes in- so much closer
touch with the reality in human creatures
either through intellect or heart. Christ showed
the way to do it, through personal human con-
tact. So many people get lost in the material
and humanly human in a big university, that
the opportunity to hold up spiritual ideals is far
beyond what my poor little strength and vision
can cope with, — and yet I feel that my post
is here and I must stand by it.

I am sorry it was a disappointment to you to
know I had refused the offer of a deanship at
the Carnegie Schools. Many of my friends here
agree with you, — think I have "missed my
chance." There is no question It is a big post,
with enormous opportunities, and a large sal-
ary, but I finally decided to stay right here.
The appreciation that has come to me because
of that decision has made me ashamed, when
what I do falls so far short of what I see! But
I believe I did right in my negative. The physi-

202 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

cal tax would have been overwhelming, and
you know my great desire to do the work — all
of it — given me to do. The desire for service
over-tops the physical pain and the going with-
out, if that had to be, but I must have the inner
consciousness of doing things that satisfy, and
that I believe I will more nearly have here at
Teachers College. I know that you would wish
me to do the right as I see it.
Anyhow — the die is cast!

The feeling that I have been so stupid as to
hurt any one sends my peace of mind to the
four winds. That sort of thing is inexcusable,
and I can but be stirred up over it when I know
that I have been so unmindful as to be guilty
of it. You say I take these flurries too seriously,
but that cannot be helped, because I do not
want to help it. I have heard you say how much
you preferred to choose ruffled waters rather
than the dead smoothness of unending calm;
so why do you mind when I do.? It is the sort
of thing that one must accept as an inevitable
price, and we both choose always to pay in full.

BITS OF LETTERS 203

All my life I have been shut from words that
expressed the actuality of my feelings, so will
you bear with me for striving for words that
will express what I want to say? You would,
could you know how difficult a matter with me
it is to say just what I wish. My dumbness
you must attribute to a life-long shyness partly,
training partly, reserve partly, and finally to
an uncertainty of words themselves. So, though
I fear that I shall not make my sympathy clear
to you, it will not be for any other reason save
that I cannot find words. . . . We must ham-
mer out the steel of our Ideal on Life's anvil,
or the hope of any happiness that is lasting is
gone. That we are called upon so often to do it
alone, even denied the hope of human comrade-
ship that the heart craves, in no wise frees us
from the obligation. It has been ordained that
we shall leave the quiet places that soothe and
with yearning hearts and wondering minds turn
into the thick press of the surging world where
all our best is needed to keep our balance and
steady those near us whose footing Is not sure.
The Vision is there, — far out; the sky-line lifts,
recedes; beyond are glimpsed still other heights
that beckon with beauties not to be denied. In

204 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the Quest we find joy and peace and abiding
comfort, for there is something in the human
heart that is meant to be stilled only in this
eternal seeking.

The course of action noted to outsiders may
look selfish; whatever course brings least anxiety
and greatest help to those you would serve is
in the end the unselfish one. No matter how
much heart-hunger or yearning you may have,
no matter how you may feel, you know the right
thing is to do as you are doing. If one must
truly give and have anything worth the giving,
he dare not neglect his own life. It must be en-
riched from the Sources, or it is but froth he has
to offer to the many. To get in order to give,
to broaden in order to enrich, to learn in order
to teach, — that duty is laid on us all. How and
where to strike the balance, what to do and
what to leave undone, is hard, I know. But I
also know that if I am truly desirous of living
up to all the knowledge that I have, more will
be given me, and I shall know. No matter how
things look, the more we seek for real under-
standing, the more it will come. The tip-toeing

BITS OF LETTERS 205

up to what is beyond, the reaching up for Truth
and Beauty, the praying to be kept never Satis-
fied, — is not that the Quest Wonderful for us
all?

Think of Death as the Great Release. For
her whose loss you mourn, what a glorious
awakening! To be freed from all physical limi-
tations, from all disappointment, from all gloom
and grief, free to serve in that world beyond,
to enter into the glory of the spirit of Truth,
of Light, of Beauty. Think what it must mean
to be able to accomplish what one wishes, to
live one's ideals, not in part, but fully. Rejoice
with your loved and gone-before, not merely
for her release, but for her new opportunity to
fulfill the work begun here. I love that line,
"He giveth His beloved sleep." Sleep here,
awakening there. Physical laws forever vain to
bind the spirit, the boundless stretches of the
Eternal about us!

I would pour in "the oil and wine of friend-
ship," so freely if I could. Take comfort. Do
not let your heart harden, nor allow yourself
to grit your teeth and go on grimly, shutting

2o6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

the door on the sorrow. It is a power that can
open afresh all the springs of your life, that can
soften and broaden, that will trumpet your spirit
anew to the work of your hands and the hopes
of your heart. You say truly when you say
these things must be so. Every human soul
must pass through the deep waters, and it is
ordained that he shall pass alone. It is then
the absolute aloneness of the soul comes home.
Arnold's "Isolation" is So true! I know all this,
— know that you must pass alone. But God
sends us human hearts to cheer and sustain,
though they may not spare. And across the
tide, itself "too full for sound or foam," I
await the knowledge of your triumph.

Let not yourself be upset by any thought of
my illness. My physical suffering is of no mo-
ment. It is part of the price I gladly pay. All
understanding, all sympathy, come through
pain. My great hope, my opportunity for serv-
ice has lain in the fact that I have suffered in
many ways, and I have gladly paid the price,
and do now. The longing for reality you have
so often remarked in me is rooted I think.

BITS OF LETTERS 207

in my knowledge of "Pain's familiar hand."
Through it all, the Real Things have not been
shut out from me, —

"If you can foi-cfe yout heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your term long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is ndthing in you —
Except the Will which says to them, — Hold on!" —

So there you see just now what I am Striving
for, and please don't make it harder by letting
me know you mind for me! Some day maybe
I shall not have to bother with a physical body
that hampers and troubles.

Your note came to cheer me. I am glad you
are going not "back" but "on."

" Storm and stress," continual readjustments,
fresh insight, greater depth, broader interests,
all are necessary if we are to grow. If we are
striving for a knowledge of the Infinite, there
is an everlasting need for growing, but if the
storm and stress accomplishes nothing, it is
worse than useless, it is wrong. I am sorry for
the hurt, but surely you are unfair to yourself.
You know "Earnest desire prayeth always;
when ceaseth prayer? When the heart grow-
eth weary." You are thinking of yourself and

2o8 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

your hurt too much. Self-reproach is always
wasteful. We can use the same time doing
things over, or doing them anew. "Deserv-
ing" does n't seem to enter at all. These things
are not blind luck; nothing is. There is purpose
back of it, and all any of us can do at such times
is to walk softly and wait.

Don't let the shut-inness claim you. Life is
just a big chance to "do a good job" with pro-
motion awaiting us here and hereafter. The
spirit is hampered here; but no life can learn
its lessons of denial and fortitude without the
spirit's being strengthened, gaining in power
and fibre, so that the capacity for service is
greater in the next world. Compensation's law
"makes up" what seems inequalities and injus-
tices here. That sounds crude, but you know
what I mean, and think with me. The great
crying need of each of us is patience to wait
for understanding of the pain and trouble in
the world, and tenderness of love great enough
to be where pain is and not, be unsettled by
it. Do you know this? "Prayer is not an act
of worship merely, the bending of the knee

BITS OF LETTERS 209

on set occasions, and the offering petitions in
need. It is an attitude of soul, opening the life
on the Godward side, and keeping free com-
munication with the worid of spirit." And
is n't it the best kind of praying to "be still
and know that I am God" through the great
wretchedness of seeing one's loved ones suffer .''

If human sympathy becomes an end in itself,
and gets between the soul and higher spiritual
values, it is a hindrance and no more a help.
To keep it in the background as a medium of
transmission of the divine through the human
is what we have to strive for. I do not see how
any one who is deeply interested in others can
help being what you call a "human barometer."
The pressure of " 16 pounds to the square inch"
is nothing compared to that put on us by each
other. It is what you are feeling when you are
trying to hold steady and "see through." If
you could but learn to still the restlessness and
the questioning. It is "like lashing a bruise"
sometimes, to thread back to find our mistakes
in order that we may avoid them, but how
vastly much better that pain is than the anaes-

2IO NAOMI NORSWORTHY

thesia of indifference! That you can apply the
lash to the bruise means the very strength that
will bring you the joy of victory in the end.

It is when the human heart throws off the
limitations of its finite self and stands forth in
such splendid strength as this you tell me of
that one draws a full breath and lifts his eyes
to the "everlasting hills" from which comes
strength. In the face of what we know as the
realities, how can we ever be discouraged, or
careless, or indifferent? We can but "face-
front," and march forward with surging cour-
age. In the possibilities and sacrifices of human
love there are opened such wonderful reaches,
such far-leading vistas of all-sustaining power
that we are brought face-to-face afresh with
the wonder of the Divine Perfection of Love.
Of course it is only through human love and
understanding that we can find a possible means
of interpretation of the Divine, and it is for
living proofs like this one that we must be most
grateful.

BITS OF LETTERS 211

There are lines of Matthew Arnold's that
run something like this:

"With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day, and wish 't were done:
Not till the hours of light return,
All we have built do we discern."

They have comforted me many times, for
I am no more patient than you are, waiting
to see "results." Sometimes when I have
waited longest, and not always hopefully,
things have all at once cleared, and though
sometimes they are different from expectations,
it is a wonderful experience to see how vastly
better they often are than we had planned ! I
am hoping it will work out so for you this time.
But even so, you feel with me that it is the
struggle that avails, and you are glad and can
but be glad that you have thrown yourself so
whole-heartedly into the effort.

Your question is a big one; it is the cry of the
human soul, of every soul. My answer must be
a personal one; that is what you wanted, is it
not.?

212 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

I believe most fully that happiness that is
abiding, calm, and steady comes only through
service. All the teachings of philosophy, psy-
chology, sociology, ethics, point to that answer.
Consciousness of self as the controlling force
in the life of an adult induces a morbid un-
healthfulness of mental life, a restless dissatis-
faction with life's conditions, a vain, frantic
striving for that which always eludes, or if
grasped, could never satisfy. In a child, this
control of personal motive has a place, but the
adult is a social being, and the self truly func-
tions only under social conditions. You ask,
"Does n't your personal self ever cry aloud?"
But service is the highest expression of the full
person, and therefore the personal life in serv-
ice is being fully satisfied. The selfish motives
and desires are there with us all, and in order
to overcome them and reach happiness through
service, one must have a strong purpose, an
ideal that is overwhelmingly attractive, and
a source of inspiration and strength outside
his own limited capacity. The Christ furnishes
all three. Devotion to the well-being of others
in the broadest possible sense was what He
preached. "He that loseth his life shall save

BITS OF LETTERS 213

it." True, complete happiness comes only
through following in the path of self-sacrifice
and social service pointed out by Him.

How can any one who has in the least sounded
the depths of human hearts, their power to love
and suffer, ever doubt God or the Hereafter.''
That power is so entirely different from what
we call the "human," from everything but
spirit. It is in its essence a longing, a reaching
out for something never grasped, a going-out,
a giving-up, and yet forever it bears in it the
influence of "wine that strengthens, of meat
that sustains." The firm faith in it, this hidden
universal strength, is music through all my
days. It is the force of it that makes me feel
so strongly the need for us to reach out to the
Source of all that we may lay firmer hold on the
Infinite, may strive more for the Christ-ideal.
So I am making for you the greatest, most in-
clusive wish: that this Ideal may be yours to
live, to strive for, to sacrifice for, and then only
will you be truly satisfied.

X

FAVORITE POEMS

YESTERDAY'S GRIEF

The rain that fell a-yesterday is ruby on the roses,
Silver on the poplar leaf, and gold on willow-stem;
The grief that chanced a-yesterday is silence that

encloses
Holy loves, where Time and Change shall never

trouble them.

The rain that fell a-yesterday makes all the hill-side

glisten.
Coral, on the laurel, and beryl on the grass;
The grief that chanced a-yesterday has taught the

soul to listen
For whispers of Eternity in all the winds that pass.

O faint of heart! storm-beaten! this rain will gleam

to-morrow.
Flame within the columbine and jewel on the thorn,
Heaven in the forget-me-not; though sorrow now be

sorrow.
Yet sorrow shall be beauty in the magic of the

morn. '

K. L. Bates.

FAVORITE POEMS , 215

I KNOW a nature like a tree;

Men seek its shade instinctively.

It is a choir for singing birds,

A court for the flocks and herds.

It grows and grows, and asks not why,

But reaches up into the sky,

And stretches down into the soil.

Finding no trouble in its toil.

It flaunts no scar to tell of pain.

Self-healed, its wounds have closed again

Unaided by its pensioners.

And yet I know that great heart stirs

To each appeal and claim, — indeed

Leans to their lack and heeds their need.

A. W. Bailey.

TRANSGRESSION

I MEANT to do my work to-day,
But a brown bird sang in the apple tree.
And a butterfly flitted across the fields,
And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro.
And a rainbow held out its shining hand^ -
So what could I do but laugh and go?

2i6 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

VIOLIN MAGIC

I HEARD you touch a fairy thing
That lured the trees to blossoming.
I saw them flush, — and then you made
Their green leaves greener as you played.
You drew your bow so gently down
I dared not breathe, lest breathing drown
The tender little crooning tone
That was a wood-thrush all alone.
The tense string quivered, and I knew
Whei-e grasses strange, with morning dew
Climb a far hill I love, that all
The drops they wore shone magical.
Brimmed with the dawn, nor lovelier
Than those your crystal measures were.
The deepest forest-dusk you found
With silver darts of moon-lit sound
That pierced the trees reluctant crowd,
And made the dryads laugh aloud;
I hear them now, and one I hear
Whose voice unearthly-thin and clear
Bears trace as through the trees she slips
Of wild-wood honey on her lips.
But when your enigmatic mood
Nor dawn nor dusk of a deep wood
Nor dryad's laugh, nor thrush's song
Nor April's blossoms would prolong,
And only wayward beauty calls
Along your argent intervals.
Then am I tranced with listening,
Lest my heart stir, or anything

FAVORITE POEMS 217

Within me question, and your soul
Withdraw from mine its dear control;
Like him, Grail-sent, whom named of men,
The white swan bore away again.

G. H. Conkling.

THE DREAMS DENIED

Our lives are molded by the things we miss,
Not by Love's answering eyes, not by his kiss,
But by Love's hunger do we learn Love's bliss.
Our growth must answer to the swell and strain
Of thew and sinew toward the ultimate gain;
The warrior's worth is measured by his pain.
Upward our hopes are flung like tongues of fire;
The dreams denied unendingly aspire;
The soul must take the shape of its desire.

M. C. Smith.

THE LESSON OF THE TREES

Master, I learn this lesson from the trees:
Not to grow old. The maple by my door
Puts forth green leaves as cheerily as I
When I was taller than this self-same tree
Put forth my youthful longings. I have erred,
Standing a bleak and barren, leafless thing
Among my hopeful brothers, I am shamed.
I will not be less hopeful than the trees;
I will not cease to labor and aspire;
I will not pause in patient, high endeavor;
I will be young in heart until I die.

Richard Kirk.

2i8 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

A PRAYER

God, though this life is but a wraith.
Although we know not what we use.
Although we grope with little faith,
Give me the heart to fight — and lose.
Ever in conflict let me be;
Make me more daring than devout;
From sleek contentment keep me free,
And fill me with a buoyant doubt.

Open my ears to music; let

Me thrill with spring's first flutes and drums;

But never let me dare forget

The bitter ballads of the slums.

From compromise and things half done.
Keep me though all the world deride.
And when at last the fight is won,
God, keep me still unsatisfied.

Louis Untermeyer.

DEDICATION

A LITTLE while to pass within the throng.
To dream, to toil, to weep, to love, to die, -
And then the silence and the closing Song,
And no more of the riddle that was I.

A thing of moments, scattered preciously,
Across the level cause-way of the years!

FAVORITE POEMS 219

And yet what sudden light may I not see?
What Vision making glory of my tears?

Mayhap if I sing bravely, true, and well,
My song shall strike God's universal rhyme,
And like the echoes of a sweet stilled bell
Live in the heart of heaven after Time.

D. Burnet.

FAITH

Oh, I am tired out to-day.
The whole world leans against my door:
Cities and centuries. — I pray, — '

For praying makes me brave once more.

I should have lived long, long ago,
Before this age of steel and fire.
I am not strong enough to throw
A noose around my soul's desire.

And strangle it, because it cries
To keep its old unreasoned place
In some bright, simple Paradise
Before a God's too-human face.

I know that in this breathless fray
I am not fit to fight and cry.
My soul grows faint and far-away
From blood and shouting, till I fly,

A blinded coward, back to hide
My face against the dim old knees

220 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Of that too-human God, denied
By these quick crashing centuries.

And there I learn deep, secret things,
Too frail for speech, too strong for doubt:
How through the dark of demon-wings
The same still face of God gleams out:

How through the deadly riotous roar,
The voice of God speaks on. And then
I trust Him, as one might, before
Faith grew too fond to comfort men.

I should have lived far, far away
From this great age of grime and gold.
For still I know He hears me pray, —
That close, too-human God of old!

Fannie Stearns Davis.

THE SEER

Fill me with fire and solace, gird me with speech

divine
That the word of my mouth be music, and the chord

of my song be wine;
For the soul that quivers within me would mystical

things unfold.
Though the world is weary of singing and the eyes of

the world are cold.
I am the deathless Vision, the Voice of memorial

years.

FAVORITE POEMS 221

The Prince of the worid's rejoicing, the Prophet and
Priest of tears.

Have I not tasted rapture, have I not loved and
died?

Mounted the peaks of passion, with you been cruci-
fied?

Come, I will lead you softly, through floods that are
smooth and deep,

And trailed with the shimmering curtain of dream-
embroidered sleep;

To the dim, mysterious portal, where the spirit of
man may see

The folds of the veil dividing himself from Eternity.

Would you I bring my music? I'll pipe where the
toilers go.

And through your sweat and labor, the strains of my
song shall flow;

Dulcet-clear for your comfort, winged with a deli-
cate fire,

The shout of a strong heart chanting to the lift of a
soul's desire!

And whether you stay to hearken and drink of my
healing spring,

Or turn from the plaint of my tender, articulate whis-
pering,

Ere ever ye came I was ancient; and after ye pass, I
come, —

The Voice that shall lift in rapture when the moan
of the earth is dumb!

Man Sullivan.

222. NAOMI NORS WORTHY

A BOLT is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again:
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean we say, and what we would,

we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur, and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth forever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, Rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face.
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The Hills where his life rose.
And the Sea where it goes.

(From "The Buried Life" of Matthew Arnold.)

THE SONG OF THE MYSTIC

I WALK down the Valley of Silence —
Down the dim, voiceless valley — alone!
And I hear not the fall of a footstep
Around me, save God's and my own;
And the hush of my heart is as holy
As hovers where angels have flown!

Long ago was I weary of voices
Whose music my heart could not win;
Long ago was I weary of noises
That fretted my soul with their din;

FAVORITE POEMS 223

Long ago was I weary of places
Where I met but the human — and sin.

I walked in the world with the worldly;
I craved what the world never gave;
And I said: "In the world each Ideal
That shines like a star on life's wave.
Is wrecked on the shores of the Real,
And sleeps like a dream in a grave."

And still did I pine for the Perfect,
And still found the False with the True;
I sought 'mid the Human for Heaven,
But caught a mere glimpse of its Blue;
And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal
Veiled even that glimpse from my view.

And I toiled on, heart-tired of the Human,
And I moaned 'mid the mazes of men,
Till I knelt, long ago, at an altar
And I heard a voice call me. Since then
I walk down the Valley of Silence
That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley?
'Tis my Trysting Place with the Divine.
And I fell at the feet of the Holy,
And above me a voice said: "Be mine."
And there arose from the depths of my spirit
An echo — "My heart shall be thine."

224 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Do you ask how I live in the Valley?

I weep — and I dream — and I pray.

But my tears are as sweet as the dew-drops

That fall on the roses in May;

And my prayer, like a perfume from censers,

Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence

I dream all the songs that I sing;

And the music floats down the dim Valley

Till each finds a word for a wing.

That to hearts, like the dove of the deluge,

A message of Peace they may bring.

But far on the deep there are billows
That never shall break on the beach;
And I have heard songs in the Silence
That never shall float into speech;
•And I have had dreams in the Valley
Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen Thoughts in the Valley —
Ah! me, how my spirit was stirred!
And they wear holy veils on their faces.
Their footsteps can scarcely be heard:
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too pure for the touch of a word !

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care?
It lieth afar between mountains,

FAVORITE POEMS . 225

And God and His angels are there:
And one is the dark mount of Sorrow,
And one the bright mountain of Prayer.

Father Ryan.

From " The Marshes of Glynn."

Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the

soul of the oak,
And my heart is at ease from men, and the weari-
some sound of the stroke
Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low.
And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I

know,
And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass

within.
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of

the marshes of Glynn
Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought

me of yore
When length was fatigue, and when breadth was

but bitterness sore.
And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnam-

able pain
Drew me out of the merciless miles of the plain, —
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face
The vast sweet visage of space.

Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-
withholding and free

Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves
to the seal

226 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and

the sun,
Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath

mightily won
God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain
And sight out of blindness and purity out of a

stain.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod.
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of

God:
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen

flies
In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the

marsh and the skies:
By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod
I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God :
Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness

within
The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of

Glynn.

(From the Poems of Sidney Lanier. Copyright, 1884, 1891,
by Mary D. Lanier. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons.)

XI

MEMORIAL SERVICE

SERVICE IN MEMORY OF PROFESSOR
NORS WORTHY'

Tribute by Dean Russell
We come here to-day to pay our tribute to a
dear friend and colleague. We should be over-
whelmed, if we were to allow ourselves to dwell
upon our loss. How great it is you know full
well. No other break in the chain that binds us
together in our institutional life would be felt so
keenly; no absentee from our circle could be so
sorely missed as we miss her. So completely had
she become one of us that her passing deprives
us of something seemingly a part pf ourselves.
It is characteristic of some of the finer human
virtues that giving does not deplete the store of
the giver. The more one gives of love and sym-
pathy, the more one has to give. The silver lin-
ing to the cloud that now enshrouds us is that she

' Held on January 12 in the Milbank Chapel of Teachers
College. Reproduced by permission from Teachers College Record,
March, 1917. . .

228 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

has taught us how to give unstintingly — to give
our time, our energy, our means to forward every
good work; taught us how to do the day's work
in such a way as to bring the highest rewards;
taught us how to live cheerfully even under the
weight of pain and sorrow; and taught us how,
by losing all, to gain complete mastery over
death. She embodied, as few do, grace and
charm of personality, exceptional intellectual
power, and self-sacrificing devotion to duty.
Her life was a constant inspiration to those of
us who knew her as teacher and colleague. In
her death we take courage and again resolve to
carry on her work, in her own beautiful way, and
for the high purpose that she ever put before us.
We have with us to-day Dr. Thorndike, the
teacher to whom she would probably acknowl-
edge she owed more than to any one else. I
think it is * peculiarly proper that Professor
Thorndike should be asked to speak o{ her as a
student and a teacher.

Remarks by Professor Thorndike
Out of the great richness of Professor Nors-
worthy's service as teacher, woman, Christian,
and as friend, it falls to me to spfeak of her wtork

MEMORIAL SERVICE 229

in the department that she served so long. After
graduating from the Normal School at Trenton
in 1896, and teaching for three years, Naomi
Norsworthy came to Teachers College. At the
end of her first year she became an assistant in
the department of educational psychology. In
the sixteen years since then she gave, as instruc-
tor and professor, unfailing service and devo-
tion to the College; no task that she was asked
to perform was ever slighted, no problem of
the department's work was ever neglected. Her
work for the social and religious organizations of
the College and her tireless care for individuals
never caused her to abate full performance of
her own teaching or cooperation in the depart-
ment's responsibilities. She was offered money
and power in large measure as an administra-
tive officer in another institution — she could
have had extended authority here; but she
stayed by the work which she had begun and
which never lost its interest.

Of her skill in teaching you all know. At one
time or another she taught a majority of the
courses given in the department, both those
for undergraduates and those for graduates —
always with consummate success. Her success

230 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

was the product not only of sympathetic insight
into students' minds and response to their in-
terests, but also of thorough, conscientious prep-
aration. She dignified teaching, never making
it secondary, either to scholarship or to educa-
tional management. In her teaching, as in all
her work, she was utterly devoid of ostentation;
all thought of self was lost in the artistry of
making students understand, remember, and
apply.

To think of Professor Norsworthy is to think
first of human love and charity. And this is
fitting; for in no woman was human kindness
more uniform and persistent. Her kindness was
not, however, a diffuse benevolence, an indis-
criminate sympathy. It was directed by acute
thought and sound common sense. Her sense
of workmanship never tolerated mercy where
strict justice was needed. For sham, meanness,
and disloyalty she had an honest, vehement
hate.

Over three thousand men and women have
been under her direct influence as her students.
Every one of these, were they here, would bring
his tribute of respect for her ability, reverence
for her character, and affection for herself. Each

MEMORIAL SERVICE 231

of her colleagues in the department quickly
learned to honor and love her. If anything was
entrusted to her to do, all burden of anxiety for
that matter fell at once from everybody else. If
criticism came from her, we took it gladly. In
every one of her successes we took pride. We
tried to help her as she helped us. We shall try
to honor her by maintaining the devotion to
teaching and the sensitiveness to all human
values which she never relaxed.

Her energy and wisdom asked no praise. Her
loyalty and love sought no reward. But a place
in our minds as the perfect teacher and in our
hearts forever as a perfect friend is the reward
she would cherish — and that we give.

Remarks by Professor Whitley
It has been my privilege during fourteen years
to know Miss Norsworthy intimately in at least
three different capacities — as a teacher, as a
co-member of the staff, and particularly as a
close personal friend.

Any one who has ever been a student of hers
can testify not only to the wonderful charm of
her personality, but also to her skill in her be-
loved art of teaching. She had the ability so to

232 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

guide a discussion that the timid were embold-
ened to take part, the hazy thinkers were led to
clear expression, the belligerent were rendered
willing to compromise, and the stubborn were
allowed to convince themselves of the opposite
view from that which they had started. Her fer-
tility In illustration made her class periods as
interesting as her alertness in repartee made
them enlivening.

But to know Miss Norsworthy only in the
classroom was to enjoy but one side of her. Shy
and sensitive as she was, she preferred, and
needed, in the summer vacation, to get away
from large crowds and stay in some quiet coun-
try place where for long days together she
could rest in the open air. In the more intimate
circle of family and friends there was still more
of her gay, whimsical vivacity revealed. Because
of her fragile physique she was debarred from
the rougher kinds of sports ; but she spent many
happy hours boating, bathing, driving, touring,
or in exploration on foot of some secluded,
woodsy spot. Refreshed by such summers, but
never so built up physically as we could wish,
she would return to the College still more ready
for the blessedness of the giving of herself.

MEMORIAL SERVICE 233

Many groups can look back to happy asso-
ciations with Miss Norsworthy. In committee
work she knew how to handle a delicate situa-
tion so that too individualistic members were
led to a cooperation apparently self-suggested.
Chaotic plans evolved into orderliness under
her leadership, and discordant attitudes re-
solved into harmony. Chiefly was she in demand
in the religious organizations for the personal
touch in which the more public lecture courses
should culminate. By her gentle persuasiveness
did she help others to greatness; above all by
what she was in her daily living did she influ-
ence others, as did Naomi of old, to decide,
" Thy God shall be my God."

Not only for groups but for untold numbers
of individuals did Miss Norsworthy become,
in quite other than the academic sense, adviser
and friend. No office hours were ever long
enough in which to interview the many who
sought her help and sympathy. The corridor
near her room has often, by its rows of chairs,
witnessed eloquently to the length of time peo-
ple were willing to wait if they could but get
their turn at last to confide in the ever-ready
listener. Even during the last two years, with

234 NAOMI NORSWORTHYl

the heavy strain of anxiety at home and with the
handicap of nights broken by needed minis-
trations for her mother, and at a time when
already, had we but known, the fatal disease
must have been at work in her system, even then
Miss Norsworthy never spared herself, never
ceased to give generously of her time and strength
to any who came to ask of her.

Too broad to be committed to a single friend-
ship, she had the ability, so rare and so precious,
of taking another and another and yet others
into the close circle. There was the special, warm
place in her heart for each. Of absolute sincer-
ity and loyalty herself, she expected the same
in those around her. Deep love and devotion
have been the returns from the many who know
themselves her friends. Hers was the winsome
charm that drew people of all sorts. Hers was
the intuitive knowledge to say that which
brought relief to one in a state of unbearable
tension. Hers was the way of looking at things
that set conduct in an intelligible perspective.
Hers was the gift to calm not merely by sooth-
ing but by restoring self-control. Hers was the
wisdom to avoid fostering a weakening self-pity,
when a bracing resolution was necessary.

MEMORIAL SERVICE 235

Long ago she found and used these quotations
as an aim to set before her in her friendship, —
quotations which we, who knew her, feel reveal
her best: "To have a true friend one must love
Truth and Right better than he loves that
friend." " Friend, come up higher — higher
along with me, that you and I may be those
true lovers who are nearest God when nearest
to each other."

It is hard to realize just now that we shall not
have her dear physical presence any more; but
we should have failed in all the fruitage of her
friendship did we not answer to the increased
responsibility now ours to interpret in heart and
life what such a personality has meant. It seems
to me she is still, from her new life, to which she
looked forward for greater opportunities of love
and service, sending the same message, " Friend,
come up higher." "For I am persuaded that
neither death, nor life, nor things present nor
things to come . . . can separate us from love."

Closing Remarks by Dean Russell .
It is suggestive that in speaking of her we
say "Miss Norsworthy." Even when speaking
of her scholarship she was not mentioned as

236 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

"Dr. Norsworthy" and but seldom (and al-
ways in official relations, merely in speak-
ing of her College work) was she mentioned as
"Professor Norsworthy." Miss Norsworthy — '
woman, generous, sympathetic, loving, and yet
fragile; it is the womanliness that stands out,
the personality that attracts us most, because
she used her personality, she used her talents,
she used her scholarship, she used that marked
skill in teaching for the attainment of an ideal.
That is why she came so close to us. That is
why we miss her so much, and shall miss her.
This is not, perhaps, the time or place to tell
of her accomplishments in College work or what
she has done for our young women's social and
religious organizations generally, and of the
extended influences of that work in other insti-
tutions besides ours. I think these matters have
been touched upon more beautifully than I can
present them, but we must not forget the fact
that she had the Great Teacher's instinct and
the Master's spirit which led her to use all that
she possessed in the service of others. . In testi-
mony of that I am getting every day letters from
former students who somehow feel that they
must express what has already been said here

MEMORIAL SERVICE 237

to some one connected with the College. The day
of her funeral I received in the morning's mail
a Christmas card with the word "Merry"
stricken out and in its place a gold piece, asking
me to deposit it with the Treasurer as the be-
ginning of a fund in memory of Miss Norsworthy.
A few days later I opened another letter from a
teacher in Brooklyn, another of her former stu-
dents, pledging one hundred dollars to a fund.
No one had suggested a fund. It was just the
spontaneous expression of her students' desire
to give some tangible expression of the deep love
and affection that they and we feel for her.

Prayer by Chaplain Knox
O God, our Heavenly Father, who by the
guiding of Thy Spirit has raised up those who
have been Thy witnesses among men and the
Light of the world in their several generations,
we give unto Thee our heartfelt gratitude and
praise for the life of her who has been a true
witness and light unto us, alike our companion
and teacher, our counselor and our friend.

We thank Thee for the rare talents of intel-
lectual power with which she was so richly en-
dowed and which she faithfully devoted to a

238 NAOMI NORSWORTHY

larger understanding of the mysteries of the
mind, and to a seeking of the truth which sets
men free:

For those generous qualities of heart and soul
which so endeared her to us, enabling her to
enter with sympathetic insight into the lives
of all who came in contact with her, there to
awaken the new resolve and unveil the higher
vision :

And for the faith that she so grandly won
and lived, by which her life was ever joined with
Him who said, " I go to prepare a place for you,
that where I am, ye may be also."

Grant that her life, and the rich heritage she
has left, may ever abide with us, adding through
the unending years to the honor and fame of the
University, to which she freely gave herself, a
strength and inspiration to all who go forth from
this place to live, as she lived, in the service of
Thine eternal Kingdom!

We ask it in the Name of Him who is the
Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.

THE XND

INDEX

INDEX

Adler, Felix, 156.

Arnold, Matthew, letter refer-
ence, 3o6; quotations from,
211, 222.

Association of Superintendents,
N.E.A., 82, 106; letter refer-
ence, 194.

Bailey, A. W., poem, "I know
a nature lilie a tree," 215.

Bates, K. L., poem, "Yester-
day's Grief," 214.

"Brethren," Plymouth Breth-
ren, 8, 9, 23-25, 39, 63.

Bronte family, 49.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett,

ISO-
Browning, Robert, 161, 174;

letter reference, 185.
Burnet, D., poem, "Dedica-
tion," 218.

Carlyle, Thomas, 8, 9.

Carnegie Institute of Technol-
ogy, letter references, 199-
202.

Columbia University, 34, 3Si
91, 106.

Conkling, G. H., poem, "Violin
M4glc,",ai6.

bavls, Tatinie Steanse, 7001)1,
"Faith," 219, 220.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 94.
England, birthplace of parents,

19, 20; love for, 19, 20, 51.
Ethical Culture School, IPS.

Gosse, Edmund, 24, 25.
6rahame, Kenneth, 149.

"How to Teach," 6, IIJ.
Hugo, Victor, 89.

James, William 171.

Jameson, Mrs., letter reference,

196.
Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 14J.

Kempis, Thomas a, 134.
Kirk, Richard, poem, "Lesson

of the Trees," 217.
Kno2, Chaplain, prayer by, 237,

338.

La Farge, John, 163.

Lanier, Sidney, 149J excerpts

from "The Marshes of

Glynn," 325, 226.

Madridge, Eva Ann, mother of
Naomi Norsworthy, 18; early
years, 19-22; characteristics,
26-33; religious convictions,
22, 23, 25, 28; training of chil-
dren, 27-3S, 42, 47; death,
37; letter references, 185, 193,
195.

Morristown, New Jersey, 67.

National >'Coq^reK of .Mothers,
letter teinTeacc^ 183.

Normal, Trenton Stote, 33, 60*
67-

Norsworthy, Naomi, reasons for
biography of, 3, 5, 7; difficul-
ties of true delineation, 4-1 1,
16, 17; distaste for publicity,
5; minimizing of herself, 5,
iij I2-IS, S0> 78, 170; author-
ship, 6, no. III, 119; public
ijHalaag, 6, Sj, 95, 114; let-

242

INDEX

ters, intimacy of, 6, 175 (ex-
tracts from, 177-213); mys-
tery of her personality, 8-12;
professional rank, 9, 68, 72;
devotion to Teachers Col-
lege, 10, 99-100, loi, 106,
121, 137; powers of inspira-
tion, S, 10-12, 74, 77; 82, 83,
86, 88, 89; desire for service,
II, 57, 81, 99-100. 107, no,
131-34, 165-67, 228; prodi-
gality, 15-16, 87, 107-08,
131-34, 165-67; reserve, 13,
153; universality, 16, 88, 165,
168; devotion to mother, 18,
37i 38; origin of name, 22;
religious convictions, 23, 25,
28; brothers, 34-35. 4.*. 4^.
53, 120, 121; academic de-
grees, 35, 69, 70; birth, birth-
place, 39; formative influ-
ences, 18-38, 42, 48, SI, 53-
57; Spartan note, 37, 41; se-
cluded childhood, 28, 46, 48,
49; drill in Bible, 42, 57; phys-
ical quickness, 45, 75, 126;
childhood names, 46, 47;
range of tastes, 50, 53, 74,
149, 153; desire to teach, 50,
66-67; physical handicaps,
52, 61, 63, 126, 136; sensi-
tivity, 53-54, 127; respon-
siveness, 54, 118, 14S, 149,
iS'i '54; **r'y education,
49. 56. S7. S8; "gaps" in edu-
cation, 59, 60, 67; normal
school, 60-67; determination
to enter Teachers College, 67;
first teaching post in Morris-
town, New Jersey, 67; matric-
ulation in Teachers College,
67; interest in chemistry, 07;
pychology as field for special-
ization, 68; student assistant,
68; service in Teachers Col-
lege, 69, I^; doctorate thesis,
70; gjfts as a teacher, /l^ 73,

74; social element in teaching,
71, 74; aims as a teacher, 72,
73, 232; conduct of a recita-
tion, 72-76; large classes,
77; principles emphasized in
teaching, 72, 76-78, 92-93;
anecdotes of teaching, 77-80;
shyness, 78, 96, 129, 130 (let-
ter reference, 190) ; clarity, 77,
82; scholarship, 58, 62, 64,
68, 81, 82, 86; tact, 87, 97,
134, 144, 1^5; Adviser of
Women, 89; interest in reli-
gious work, 90, 91; interest in
democracy, 90, 95; opinion of
vocational education, 92, 93;
attitude towards Suffrage,
10, 94; talks in chapel, 97,
98; fighting ability, 45, 99;
strength of will, 103, 104, 122,
123, 136-38; varied and cease-
less demands, 69, 89, 90, 99,
104, 105, 106, 107, 108-10;
effects of mother's illness,
1 1 1-14; physical decline, 114-
24; fondness for children, 119,
122, 149; death, 124; physical
appearance, 125, 126, 128;
sympathy, 89, 154, 157, 165,
17s. 176; generosity, 131-34;
love for truth, 134, 135; love
for poetry, 149, 150, 153 (let-
ter reference, 185); childlike
qualities, 138, 150, 151; sense
of humor, 139; courage, 128,
140; mentality, 62, 64, 140,
143; imagination, 142; con-
centration, 137, 143; pricle,
143, 144; scorn, 145; sanity,
145; stubbornness, 146; im-
patience, 147; impulsiveness,
151; temperament, 148-54;
joy in life, 118, 128, 150 (let-
ter reference, 189, 190); opti-
mism, 151, 153, 171, 172;
Celtic notis, 153^ ideaU, 157-
74; individuauBtn, i62-«4;

INDEX

243

attitude towards friendship,
167, 168 (letter reference,
196) ; large faith in humanity,
168; idealism the key-note of
life, 173; attitude towards
death, 174.
Norsworthy, Samuel B., father
of Naomi, 19-ai, 39, 30, 31,
46.

Orange, New Jersey, 29, 30, 31,

Psychology as professional field,
68, 72; assistant professor of,

9-

"Pyschology of Childhood," 6,
no. III, 119.

"Psychology of Mentally Defi-
cient Children," thesis, 70.

Russell, Dean James E., Fore-
word by; tribute from, 235,
237.

Rutherford, New Jersey, 30, 33,

S2, 56-
Ryan, Father, poem, "Song of
the Mystic," 222, 224.

Sera, Professor, 129-34.
Shakespeare, William, letter
reference, 196.

Smith, M. C, poem, "Dreams

Denied," 217.
Sullivan, Alan, poem, "The

Seer," 220, 221.

Teachers' Associations, 106; let-
ter reference, 183, 193, 194,
201.

Teachers College, official rank
of Naomi Norsworthy, 9, 72;
tributes from faculty of, 81,
82, 88, 99, 227-38; letter refer-
ences, 183, 193, 194, 200, 202.

Thorndike, Professor Edward
L., quoted, 68; tribute from,
228-31.

Untermeyer, Louis, poem, "A
Prayer," 218.

Van Dyke, Henry, letter quo-
tation, 196.
Vocational Education, 92-93.

Wells, H. G., 157.
Whitley, Professor M. T., trib-
ute from, 231-35.
Woman's Faculty Club, 81, 105.
Wordsworth, William, 13.

Young Women's Christian As-
sociation, 85, go, 105.

(Cbe Ctiber^be T^tt^f

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

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