New England girlhood, outlined from memory (Beverly, MA)

Lucy Larcom

Description

pubOne.info present you this new edition. - When on some gilded cloud or flower

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819938545
• Langue: English

Extrait

A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD
OUTLINED FROM MEMORY
By
LUCY LARCOM
I dedicated this sketch
To my girlfriends in general;
And in particular
To my namesake-niece,
Lucy Larcom Spaulding.
Happy those early days, when I
Shined in my angel-infancy!
— When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity:—
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience by a sinful sound; —
But felt through all this fleshy dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
HENRY VAUGHAN
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction.
WORDSWORTH
PREFACE
THE following sketch was written for the young, atthe suggestion of friends.
My audience is understood to be composed of girls ofall ages, and of women who have not forgotten their girlhood. Suchas have a friendly appreciation of girls— and of those who writefor them— are also welcome to listen to as much of my narrative asthey choose. All others are eavesdroppers, and, of course, have noright to criticise.
To many, the word “autobiography” implies nothingbut conceit and egotism. But these are not necessarily itscharacteristics. If an apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell itsown story, it would be, still more than its own, the story of thesunshine that smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, ofthe birds that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, andof the motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals wereunfolded and its form developed.
A complete autobiography would indeed be a pictureof the outer and inner universe photographed upon one little life'sconsciousness. For does not the whole world, seen and unseen go tothe making up of every human being? The commonest personal historyhas its value when it is looked at as a part of the One InfiniteLife. Our life— which is the very best thing we have— is ours onlythat we may share it with Our Father's family, at their need. If wehave anything, within us worth giving away, to withhold it isungenerous; and we cannot look honestly into ourselves withoutacknowledging with humility our debt to the lives around us forwhatever of power or beauty has been poured into ours.
None of us can think of ourselves as entirelyseparate beings. Even an autobiographer has to say “we” muchoftener than “I. ” Indeed, there may be more egotism in withdrawingmysteriously into one's self, than in frankly unfolding one's life—story, for better or worse. There may be more vanity in covering,one's face with a veil, to be wondered at and guessed about, thanin drawing it aside, and saying by that act, “There! you see that Iam nothing remarkable. ”
However, I do not know that I altogether approve ofautobiography myself, when the subject is a person of so littleimportance as in the present instance. Still, it may have a reasonfor being, even in a case like this.
Every one whose name is before the public at allmust be aware of a common annoyance in the frequent requests whichare made for personal facts, data for biographical paragraphs, andthe like. To answer such requests and furnish the material askedfor, were it desirable, would interfere seriously with thenecessary work of almost any writer. The first impulse is to pay noattention to them, putting them aside as mere signs of theill-bred, idle curiosity of the age we live in about people andtheir private affairs. It does not seem to be supposed possiblethat authors can have any natural shrinking from publicity, likeother mortals.
But while one would not willingly encourage anintrusive custom, there is another view of the matter. The mostenjoyable thing about writing is that the relation between writerand reader may be and often does become that of mutual friendship;an friends naturally like to know each other in a neighborlyway.
We are all willing to gossip about ourselves,sometimes, with those who are really interested in us. Girlsespecially are fond of exchanging confidences with those whom theythink they can trust; it is one of the most charming traits of asimple, earnest-hearted girlhood, and they are the happiest womenwho never lose it entirely.
I should like far better to listen to mygirl-readers' thoughts about life and themselves than to be writingout my own experiences. It is to my disadvantage that theconfidences, in this case, must all be on one side. But I haveknown so many girls so well in my relation to them of schoolmate,workmate, and teacher, I feel sure of a fair share of theirsympathy and attention.
It is hardly possible for an author to writeanything sincerely without making it something of an autobiography.Friends can always read a personal history, or guess at it, betweenthe lines. So I sometimes think I have already written mine, in myverses. In them, I have found the most natural and free expressionof myself. They have seemed to set my life to music for me, a lifethat has always had to be occupied with many things besideswriting. Not, however, that I claim to have written much poetry:only perhaps some true rhymes: I do not see how there could be anypleasure in writing insincere ones.
Whatever special interest this little narrative ofmine may have is due to the social influences under which I wasreared, and particularly to the prominent place held by both workand religion in New England half a century ago. The period of mygrowing-up had peculiarities which our future history can neverrepeat, although something far better is undoubtedly alreadyresulting thence. Those peculiarities were the natural developmentof the seed sown by our sturdy Puritan ancestry. The religion ofour fathers overhung us children like the shadow of a mighty treeagainst the trunk of which we rested, while we looked up in wonderthrough the great boughs that half hid and half revealed the sky.Some of the boughs were already decaying, so that perhaps we beganto see a little more of the sky, than our elders; but the tree wassound at its heart. There was life in it that can never be lost tothe world.
One thing we are at last beginning to understand,which our ancestors evidently had not learned; that it is far moreneedful for theologians to become as little children, than forlittle children to become theologians. They considered it a dutythat they owed to the youngest of us, to teach us doctrines. And webelieved in our instructors, if we could not always digest theirinstructions. We learned to reverence truth as they received it andlived it, and to feel that the search for truth was one chief endof our being.
It was a pity that we were expected to beginthinking upon hard subjects so soon, and it was also a pity that wewere set to hard work while so young. Yet these were bothinevitable results of circumstances then existing; and perhaps thetwo belong together. Perhaps habits of conscientious work inducethought. Certainly, right thinking naturally impels people towork.
We learned no theories about “the dignity of labor,” but we were taught to work almost as if it were a religion; tokeep 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 upunder these wholesome Puritanic influences, as glad as I am that Iwas born a New Englander; and I surely should have chosen NewEngland for my birthplace before any region under the sun.
Rich or poor, every child comes into the world withsome imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality. Ibelieve 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, lifemeant that to me. And, fortunately, poetry is not purchasablematerial, but an atmosphere in which every life may expand. I foundit everywhere about me. The children of old New England were alwayssurrounded, it is true, with stubborn matter of fact, — the hand tohand struggle for existence. But that was no hindrance. Poetry musthave prose to root itself in; the homelier its earth-spot, thelovelier, by contrast, its heaven-breathing flowers.
To different minds, poetry may present differentphases. To me, the reverent faith of the people I lived among, andtheir faithful everyday living, was poetry; blossoms and trees andblue skies were poetry. God himself was poetry. As I grew up andlived on, friendship became to me the deepest and sweetest ideal ofpoetry. To live in other lives, to take their power and beauty intoour own, that is poetry experienced, the most inspiring of all.Poetry embodied in persons, in lovely and lofty characters, moresacredly than all in the One Divine Person who has transfigured ourhuman life with the glory of His sacrifice, — all the great lyricsand epics pale before that, and it is within the reach andcomprehension of every human soul.
To care for poetry in this way does not make one apoet, but it does make one feel blessedly rich, and quiteindifferent to many things which are usually looked upon asdesirable possessions. I am sincerely grateful that it was given tome, from childhood, to see life from this point of view. And itseems to me that every young girl would be happier for beginningher earthly journey with the thankful consciousness that her lifedoes not consist in the abundance of things that she possesses.
The highest possible poetic conception is that of alife consecrated to a noble ideal. It may be unable to findexpression for itself except through humble, even menial services,or through unselfish devotion whose silent song is audible to Godalone; yet such music as this might rise to heaven from every younggirl's heart and character if she would set it free. In such waysit was meant that the world should be filled with the true poetryof womanhood.
It is one of the most beautiful facts in this humanexistence of ours, that we remember the earliest and freshest partof it most vividly. Doubtless