minds, alternated only by complete solitude, gave something precocious,
whether to my imagination or my reason. The wild fables muttered to me
by the old nurse in the summer twilight or over the winter's hearth,--
the effort made by my struggling intellect to comprehend the grave,
sweet wisdom of my father's suggested lessons,--tended to feed a passion
for revery, in which all my faculties strained and struggled, as in the
dreams that come when sleep is nearest waking. I had learned to read
with ease, and to write with some fluency, and I already began to
imitate, to reproduce. Strange tales akin to those I had gleaned from
fairy-land, rude songs modelled from such verse-books as fell into my
hands, began to mar the contents of marble-covered pages designed for
the less ambitious purposes of round text and multiplication. My mind
was yet more disturbed by the intensity of my home affections. My love
for both my parents had in it something morbid and painful. I often
wept to think how little I could do for those I loved so well. My
fondest fancies built up imaginary difficulties for them, which my arm
was to smooth. These feelings, thus cherished, made my nerves over-
susceptible and acute. Nature began to affect me powerfully; and, from
that affection rose a restless curiosity to analyze the charms that so
mysteriously moved me to joy or awe, to smiles or tears. I got my
father to explain to me the elements of astronomy; I extracted from
Squills, who was an ardent botanist, some of the mysteries in the life
of flowers. But music became my darling passion. My mother (though the
daughter of a great scholar,--a scholar at whose name my father raised
his hat if it happened to be on his head) possessed, I must own it
fairly, less book-learning than many a humble tradesman's daughter can
boast in this more enlightened generation; but she had some natural
gifts which had ripened, Heaven knows how! into womanly accomplishments.
She drew with some elegance, and painted flowers to exquisite
perfection. She played on more than one instrument with more than