All through
the day in my intercourse with others, everything has a tendency to
destroy the calmness of mind gained by communion with Him. One
flatters me, another is angry with me, another is unjust to me.
"You speak of your predilections for literature having been a snare to
you. I have found it so myself. I can scarcely think, without tears
and indignation, that all that is beautiful and lovely and poetical
has been laid on other altars. Oh! will there never be a poet with a
heart enlarged and purified by the Holy Spirit, who shall throw all
the graces of harmony, all the enchantments of feeling, pathos, and
poetry, around sentiments worthy of them? . . . It matters little what
service He has for me. . . . I do not mean to live in vain. He has
given me talents, and I will lay them at his feet, well satisfied, if
He will accept them. All my powers He can enlarge. He made my mind,
and He can teach me to cultivate and exert its faculties."
The following November she writes from Groton, Conn., to Miss May:--
"I am in such an uncertain, unsettled state, traveling back and forth,
that I have very little time to write. In the first place, on my
arrival in Boston I was obliged to spend two days in talking and
telling news. Then after that came calling, visiting, etc., and then I
came off to Groton to see my poor brother George, who was quite out of
spirits and in very trying circumstances.
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