A NEW ENGLAND GIRLHOOD
OUTLINED FROM MEMORY
By
LUCY LARCOM
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER | TITLE |
| I. | UP AND DOWN THE LANE |
| II. | SCHOOLROOM AND MEETING-HOUSE |
| III. | THE HYMN-BOOK |
| IV. | NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES |
| V. | OLD NEW ENGLAND |
| VI. | GLIMPSES OF POETRY |
| VII. | BEGINNING TO WORK |
| VIII. | BY THE RIVER |
| IX. | MOUNTAIN-FRIENDS |
| X. | MILL-GIRLS’ MAGAZINES |
| XI. | READING AND STUDYING |
| XII. | FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI |
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, at the suggestion of friends.
My audience is understood to be composed of girls of all ages, and of women who have not forgotten their girlhood. Such as have a friendly appreciation of girls—and of those who write for them—are also welcome to listen to as much of my narrative as they choose. All others are eavesdroppers, and, of course, have no right to criticise.
To many, the word “autobiography” implies nothing but conceit and egotism. But these are not necessarily its characteristics. If an apple blossom or a ripe apple could tell its own story, it would be, still more than its own, the story of the sunshine that smiled upon it, of the winds that whispered to it, of the birds that sang around it, of the storms that visited it, and of the motherly tree that held it and fed it until its petals were unfolded and its form developed.
A complete autobiography would indeed be a picture of the outer and inner universe photographed upon one little life’s consciousness. For does not the whole world, seen and unseen go to the making up of every human being? The commonest personal history has its value when it is looked at as a part of the One Infinite Life. Our life—which is the very best thing we have—is ours only that we may share it with Our Father’s family, at their need. If we have anything, within us worth giving away, to withhold it is ungenerous; and we cannot look honestly into ourselves without acknowledging with humility our debt to the lives around us for whatever of power or beauty has been poured into ours.
None of us can think of ourselves as entirely separate beings. Even an autobiographer has to say “we” much oftener than “I.” Indeed, there may be more egotism in withdrawing mysteriously 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, than in drawing it aside, and saying by that act, “There! you see that I am nothing remarkable.”
However, I do not know that I altogether approve of autobiography myself, when the subject is a person of so little importance as in the present instance. Still, it may have a reason for being, even in a case like this.
Every one whose name is before the public at all must be aware of a common annoyance in the frequent requests which are made for personal facts, data for biographical paragraphs, and the like. To answer such requests and furnish the material asked for, were it desirable, would interfere seriously with the necessary work of almost any writer. The first impulse is to pay no attention to them, putting them aside as mere signs of the ill-bred, idle curiosity of the age we live in about people and their private affairs. It does not seem to be supposed possible that authors can have any natural shrinking from publicity, like other mortals.
But while one would not willingly encourage an intrusive custom, there is another view of the matter. The most enjoyable thing about writing is that the relation between writer and reader may be and often does become that of mutual friendship; an friends naturally like to know each other in a neighborly way.
We are all willing to gossip about ourselves, sometimes, with those who are really interested in us. Girls especially are fond of exchanging confidences with those whom they think they can trust; it is one of the most charming traits of a simple, earnest-hearted girlhood, and they are the happiest women who never lose it entirely.
I should like far better to listen to my girl-readers’ thoughts about life and themselves than to be writing out my own experiences. It is to my disadvantage that the confidences, in this case, must all be on one side. But I have known so many girls so well in my relation to them of schoolmate, workmate, and teacher, I feel sure of a fair share of their sympathy and attention.
It is hardly possible for an author to write anything sincerely without making it something of an autobiography. Friends can always read a personal history, or guess at it, between the lines. So I sometimes think I have already written mine, in my verses. In them, I have found the most natural and free expression of myself. They have seemed to set my life to music for me, a life that has always had to be occupied with many things besides writing. Not, however, that I claim to have written much poetry: only perhaps some true rhymes: I do not see how there could be any pleasure in writing insincere ones.
Whatever special interest this little narrative of mine may have is due to the social influences under which I was reared, and particularly to the prominent place held by both work and religion in New England half a century ago. The period of my growing-up had peculiarities which our future history can never repeat, although something far better is undoubtedly already resulting thence. Those peculiarities were the natural development of the seed sown by our sturdy Puritan ancestry. The religion of our fathers overhung us children like the shadow of a mighty tree against the trunk of which we rested, while we looked up in wonder through the great boughs that half hid and half revealed the sky. Some of the boughs were already decaying, so that perhaps we began to see a little more of the sky, than our elders; but the tree was sound at its heart. There was life in it that can never be lost to the world.
One thing we are at last beginning to understand, which our ancestors evidently had not learned; that it is far more needful for theologians to become as little children, than for little children to become theologians. They considered it a duty that they owed to the youngest of us, to teach us doctrines. And we believed in our instructors, if we could not always digest their instructions. We learned to reverence truth as they received it and lived it, and to feel that the search for truth was one chief end of our being.
It was a pity that we were expected to begin thinking upon hard subjects so soon, and it was also a pity that we were set to hard work while so young. Yet these were both inevitable results of circumstances then existing; and perhaps the two belong together. Perhaps habits of conscientious work induce thought. Certainly, right thinking naturally impels people to work.
We learned no theories about “the dignity of labor,” but we were taught to work almost as if it were a religion; to keep 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 up under these wholesome Puritanic influences, as glad as I am that I was born a New Englander; and I surely should have chosen New England for my birthplace before any region under the sun.
Rich or poor, every child comes into the world with some imperative need of its own, which shapes its individuality. I believe 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, life meant that to me. And, fortunately, poetry is not purchasable material, but an atmosphere in which every life may expand. I found it everywhere 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 for itself except through humble, even menial services, or through unselfish devotion whose silent song is audible to God alone; yet such music as this might rise to heaven from every young girl’s heart and character if she would set it free. In such ways it was meant that the world should be filled with the true poetry of womanhood.
It is one of the most beautiful facts in this human existence of ours, that we remember the earliest and freshest part of it most vividly. Doubtless it was meant that our childhood should live on in us forever. My childhood was by no means a cloudless one. It had its light and shade, each contributing a charm which makes it wholly delightful in the retrospect.
I can see very distinctly the child that I was, and I know how the world looked to her, far off as she is now. She seems to me like my little sister, at play in a garden where I can at any time return and find her. I have enjoyed bringing her back, and letting her tell her story, almost as if she were somebody else. I like her better than I did when I was really a child, and I hope never to part company with her.
I do not feel so much satisfaction in the older girl who comes between her and me, although she, too, is enough like me to be my sister, or even more like my young, undisciplined mother; for the girl is mother of the woman. But I have to acknowledge her faults and mistakes as my own, while I sometimes feel like reproving her severely for her carelessly performed tasks, her habit of lapsing into listless reveries, her cowardly shrinking from responsibility and vigorous endeavor, and many other faults that I have inherited from her. Still, she is myself, and I could not be quite happy without her comradeship.
Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except in appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her silvery crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still both child and girl, in the completeness of womanly character. We have a right to our entire selves, through all the changes of this mortal state, a claim which we shall doubtless carry along with us into the unfolding mysteries of our eternal being. Perhaps in this thought lies hidden the secret of immortal youth; for a seer has said that “to grow old in heaven is to grow young.”
To take life as it is sent to us, to live it faithfully, looking and striving always towards better life, this was the lesson that came to me from my early teachers. It was not an easy lesson, but it was a healthful one; and I pass it on to younger pupils, trusting that they will learn it more thoroughly than I ever have.
Young or old, we may all win inspiration to do our best, from the needs of a world to which the humblest life may be permitted to bring immeasurable blessings:—
“For no one doth know
What he can bestow,
What light, strength, and beauty may after him go:
Thus onward we move,
And, save God above,
None guesseth how wondrous the journey will prove.”
L.L.
BEVERLY, MASSACHUSETTS,
October, 1889.
