they owed to the youngest of us, to teach us doctrines. And we
believed in our instructors, if we could not always digest their
instructions. We learned to reverence truth as they received it
and lived it, and to feel that the search for truth was one chief
end of our being.

It was a pity that we were expected to begin thinking upon hard
subjects so soon, and it was also a pity that we were set to hard
work while so young. Yet these were both inevitable results of
circumstances then existing; and perhaps the two belong together.
Perhaps habits of conscientious work induce thought. Certainly,
right thinking naturally impels people to work.

We learned no theories about "the dignity of labor," but we were
taught to work almost as if it were a religion; to keep at work,
expecting nothing else. It was our inheritance, banded down from
the outcasts of Eden. And for us, as for them, there was a
blessing hidden in the curse. I am glad that I grew up under
these wholesome Puritanic influences, as glad as I am that I was
born a New Englander; and I surely should have chosen New England
for my birthplace before any region under the sun.

Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some
imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality. I
believe it was Grotius who said, "Books are necessities of my
life. Food and clothing I can do without, if I must."

My "must-have " was poetry. From the first, life meant that to
me. And, fortunately, poetry is not purchasable material, but an
atmosphere in which every life may expand. I found it everywhere