but the mystery of it is, that when I left my native village I did
not dream that imagination would lead me there again, for the simple
annals of our village and domestic ways did not interest me; neither
was I in the least studious. My years were passed in an attempt to
have a good time, according to the desires and fancies of youth. Of
literature and the literary life, I and my tribe knew nothing; we had
not discovered "sermons in stones." Where then was the panorama of
my stories and novels stored, that was unrolled in my new sphere? Of
course, being moderately intelligent I read everything that came in
my way, but merely for amusement. It had been laid up against me as a
persistent fault, which was not profitable; I should peruse moral,
and pious works, or take up sewing,--that interminable thing, "white
seam," which filled the leisure moments of the right-minded. To
the _personnel_ of writers I gave little heed; it was the hero they
created that charmed me, like Miss Porter's gallant Pole, Sobieski, or
the ardent Ernest Maltravers, of Bulwer.

I had now come to live among those who made books, and were interested
in all their material, for all was for the glory of the whole.
Prefaces, notes, indexes, were unnoticed by me,--even Walter Scott's
and Lord Byron's. I began to get glimpses of a profound ignorance, and
did not like the position as an outside consideration. These mental
productive adversities abased me. I was well enough in my way, but
nothing was expected from me in their way, and when I beheld their
ardor in composition, and its fine emulation, like "a sheep before her
shearers," I was dumb. The environment pressed upon me, my pride was
touched; my situation, though "tolerable, was not to be endured."

Fortunate or not, we were poor. It was not strange that I should
marry, said those who knew the step I had taken; but that I should