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340
LETTERS OF LIFE.

and French, and so arranged my plan as to present collaterally parallel events, with resemblances or contrasts among the distinguished of other nations. To reduce the style of these gatherings to the simplicity of unfolding capacities, cost me almost the toil of translation. Indeed, I felt some degree of compunction that two months, with the exception of claims of correspondence and contributions to periodicals, should have been expended on a work of such trifling extent as one hundred and twenty-two pages. Yet I eventually reaped both pleasure and benefit from its use, in the home-education of my own two little ones, who were five and seven years old at the time of its first appearance.


1836.

22. "Olive Buds."

This, as the name imports, has affinity with those peaceful dispositions which are the germ of national tranquillity and prosperity. It owes its existence to the instigation of a friend, Mr. William Watson, who was interested in the promulgation of such principles, and had commenced on a small scale the business of publishing. Having been a boarder in his family during the last year that I had charge of my school, and treated with great kindness, I made this work of one hundred and thirty-six pages, with another small publication, an offering of gratitude to him, taking pleasure