e New World, my
ears growing accustomed to a new language; I sat at the feet of
renowned professors, till my eyes contracted in dreaming over what
they taught; and there I was again, an American among Americans,
suddenly made aware of all that I had been, all that I had
become--suddenly illuminated, inspired by a complete vision of myself,
a daughter of Israel and a child of the universe, that taught me more
of the history of my race than ever my learned teachers could
understand.

All this came to me in that instant of tasting, all from the flavor of
ripe strawberries on my tongue. Why, then, should I not treasure my
memories of childhood feasts? This experience gives me a great respect
for my bread and meat. I want to taste of as many viands as possible;
for when I sit down to a dish of porridge I am certain of rising again
a better animal, and I may rise a wiser man. I want to eat and drink
and be instructed. Some day I expect to extract from my pudding the
flavor of manna which I ate in the desert, and then I shall write you
a contemporaneous commentary on the Exodus. Nor do I despair of
remembering yet, over a dish of corn, the time when I fed on worms;
and then I may be able to recall how it felt to be made at last into a
man. Give me to eat and drink, for I crave wisdom.

* * * * *

My winters, while I was a very little girl, were passed in comparative
confinement. On account of my delicate health, my grandmother and
aunts deemed it wise to keep me indoors; or if I went out, I was so
heavily coated and mittened and shawled that the frost scarcely got a
chance at the tip of my nose. I never skated or coasted or built snow
houses. If I had any experience of snowballs, it was with those
thrown at me by the Gentile boys. The way I dodge a snowball to this
day makes me certain that I learned the act in my fearful childhood
days, when I learned so many cowardly tricks of bending to a blow. I
know that I was proud of myself when, not many years ago, I found I
was not afraid to stand up and catch a flying baseball; but the fear
of the snowball I have not conquered. When I turn a corner in snowball
days, the boys with bulging pockets see a head held high and a step
unquickened, but I know that I cringe inwardly; and this private
mortification I set down against old Polotzk, in my long score of
grievances and shames. Fear is a devil hard to cast out.

Let me make the most of the winter a