GLIMPSES OF FIFTY YEARS.

The Autobiography

OF

AN AMERICAN WOMAN

BY

FRANCES E. WILLARD.

WRITTEN BY ORDER OF THE NATIONAL WOMAN'S CHRISTIAN
TEMPERANCE UNION.

INTRODUCTION BY HANNAH WHITALL SMITH.

"Nothing makes life dreary but lack of motive."

General Agents for United States, Canada, Australia, Sandwich Islands.

HV 5293
W5

COPYRIGHTED BY THE

WOMAN'S TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION ASSOCIATION.

1889.

EXPLANATORY.

We wish it distinctly understood that Miss Willard's responsibility for this book ended
when she furnished her manuscript.

She repeatedly requested that but one picture of herself be given. This, however, would
leave her out of official groups where she is the central figure, and to preserve the unity of
these, also as illustrative of altogether different phases of her life, we have arranged the
pictures as we believed the interests of the book and the preference of the public warranted us
in doing.

It should also be stated that Miss Willard wrote twelve hundred pages that had to be cui
down to seven hundred, and in so doing, scores of names, facts and allusions, all of which
she was especially desirous to have in this book, had to be omitted. To this omission the author
has kindly agreed, having written rapidly ana without calculating for the space required by
this overplus of manuscript.

Chicago, Feb. 22, 1889.

WOMAN'S TEMPERANCE PUBLICATION ASSOCIATION.

Dedicatory.

THERE IS ONE

"Face that duly as the sun,

Rose up for me since life begun;"

ONE ROYAL HEART THAT NEVER FAILED ME YET.

TO MOTHER,

AS A BIRTHDAY GIFT,

ON

JANUARY 3, 1889,

THE EIGHTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF HER UNDAUNTED LIFE,

I DEDICATE

HER ELDEST DAUGHTER'S SELF-TOLD STORY.

HOU HOU, under Satan's fierce control,
Shall Heaven on thee its rest bestow?
I know not, but I know a soul

That might have fall'n as darkly low.

"I judge thee not, what depths of ill Soe'er thy feet have found or trod ; I know a spirit and a will

As weak, but for the help of God.

"Shalt thou with full day-lab'rers stand,

Who hardly canst have pruned one vine? I know not, but I know a hand

With an infirmity like thine.

"Shalt thou, who hadst with scoffers part,

E'er wear the crown the Christian wears? I know not, but I know a heart

As flinty, but for tears and prayers.

"Have mercy, O thou Crucified!

For even while I name Thy name, I know a tongue that might have lied, Like Peter's, and am filled with shame."