about me. The children of old New England were always surrounded,
it is true, with stubborn matter of fact,--the hand to hand
struggle for existence. But that was no hindrance. Poetry must
have prose to root itself in; the homelier its earth-spot, the
lovelier, by contrast, its heaven-breathing flowers.

To different minds, poetry may present different phases. To me,
the reverent faith of the people I lived among, and their
faithful everyday living, was poetry; blossoms and trees and blue
skies were poetry. God himself was poetry. As I grew up and lived
on, friendship became to me the deepest and sweetest ideal of
poetry. To live in other lives, to take their power and
beauty into our own, that is poetry experienced, the most
inspiring of all. Poetry embodied in persons, in lovely and lofty
characters, more sacredly than all in the One Divine Person who
has transfigured our human life with the glory of His sacrifice,
--all the great lyrics and epics pale before that, and it is
within the reach and comprehension of every human soul.

To care for poetry in this way does not make one a poet, but it
does make one feel blessedly rich, and quite indifferent to many
things which are usually looked upon as desirable possessions. I
am sincerely grateful that it was given to me, from childhood, to
see life from this point of view. And it seems to me that every
young girl would be happier for beginning her earthly journey
with the thankful consciousness that her life does not consist in
the abundance of things that she possesses.

The highest possible poetic conception is that of a life
consecrated to a noble ideal. It may be unable to find expression