and youthful hearts has
not his word been the beacon--nay, more, the guiding star--that led them
safely through periods of mental storm and struggle!" Of no one is this
more true than herself. Left, to a certain extent, without compass or
guide, without any positive or effective religious training, this was
the first great moral revelation of her life. We can easily realize
the chaos and ferment of an over-stimulated brain, steeped in romantic
literature, and given over to the wayward leadings of the imagination.
Who can tell what is true, what is false, in a world where fantasy is as
real as fact? Emerson's word fell like truth itself, "a shaft of light
shot from the zenith," a golden rule of thought and action. His books
were bread and wine to her, and she absorbed them into her very being.
She felt herself invincibly drawn to the master, "that fount of wisdom
and goodness," and it was her great privilege during these years to be
brought into personal relations with him. From the first he showed her
a marked interest and sympathy, which became for her one of the most
valued possessions of her life. He criticised her work with the fine
appreciation and discrimination that made him quick to discern the
quality of her talent as well as of her personality, and he was no doubt
attracted by her almost transparent sincerity and singleness of soul, as
well as by the simplicity and modesty that would have been unusual even
in a person not gifted. He constituted himself, in a way, her literary
mentor, advised her as to the books she should read and the attitude of
mind she should cultivate. For some years he corresponded with her very
faithfully; his letters are full of noble and characteristic utterances,
and give evidence of a warm regard that in itself was a stimulus and
a high incentive. But encouragement even from so illustrious a source
failed to elate the young poetess, or even to give her a due sense of
the importance and value of her work, or the dignity of her vocation.
We have already alluded to her modesty in her unwillingness to
assert herself or claim any prerogative,--something even morbid
and exaggerated, which we know not how to define, whether as
over-sensitiveness or indifference. Once finished, the heat and glow of
composition spent, her writings apparently ceased to interest her. She
often resented any allusion to them on the part of intimate friends, and
the public verdict as to their excellence could not re