ADELAIDE PROCTER. 217 The volume of Legends and Lyrics, Miss Procter's second book, is much better than her first, and contains many of her finest poems, including such favorites as " The Angel's Story," " True Honors," " A Tomb in Ghent," etc. American readers may note with interest that the motto placed beneath her dedication to a friend is from Emerson. The second series which followed under the same title opened with the " Legend of Provence," one of the loveliest of Italian traditions clothed in exquisite verse, and contained other poems briefer but not less beautiful. It was her last book. Adelaide Procter died of overwork — not literary work, for all her poems together make a volume of but moderate size, but of the ceaseless labors which she undertook in the cause of charity. She visited the sick ; she taught the ignorant ; she aided the widening of woman's sphere of exertion, working for each object, as Dickens says,
- ' with a flushed earnestness that disregarded season,
weather, time of day or night, food, rest." Even when her failing health warned her to stop, she could not. It was in her nature to go on and on until she could go no more. So long as she was able to move about, she went on with the task she had set herself, and only when at last she was obliged to take to her bed, did her restless- ness disappear. Then, indeed, she resigned herself to her fate with a patience touching to witness ; and during the fifteen months of her illness never spoke a single impatient or complaining word. Some who have read her poems have thought of her as a person always pensive and serious ; but indeed she was possessed of a lively sense of humor, and had a peculiarly pleasant, ringing laugh. This cheerfulness remained with her to the end. She died on the third of February, 1864, very early in the morning. Her last words, uttered with a bright smile, were : " It has come at last ! "
