anything. I fear that it causes them to forget for a mere show of life the beauty of that life of which Byron speaks in these glorious lines—
Many are poets, but without the name;
Many are poets who have never penned
Their inspirations, and perchance the best;
They felt, and loved, and died. * * *
They compressed
The God within them, and regained the stars,
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed
Than those who are degraded by the jars
Of passion and their frailties linked to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
I have also taken the liberty of expressing this in a
little preface which I have been asked to write for these
productions, which are about being published. And in
any case, these words of Goethe, in “Faust,” apply to all
writers—
First we should live; we afterwards may write.
These young girls may be said as yet scarcely to have
lived, known, thought enough to write of their own
experience, their own faith and conviction. They write,
as people sing, by the ear. It is good, it is excellent that
every one should early learn to disentangle their thoughts,
to express themselves well and clearly, and for this
purpose are these trials of authorship commendable.
But the publicity, the having them printed, the
trumpeting them abroad, the rewarding them, and so on, can
that also be good for the young, for any one, or for
anything?
True genius will in its own way and its own time make for itself a path to praise and renown,
For it is a god;
Its own course it knoweth,
And the paths through the clouds.
After having gone through the Institute, and taken
breakfast with the family whose name it bears, and which
