the mornings I perused Swedenborg's
"Divine Love and Wisdom." In the afternoon I read, for the first and
only time, Eugene Sue's "Mysteres de Paris," which the ship's surgeon
borrowed for me from a steerage passenger. In the evening we played
whist; and when others had retired for the night, I often sat alone in
the cabin, meditating upon the events and lessons of the last six
months. These lucubrations took form in a number of poems, which were
written with no thought of publication, but which saw the light a year
or two later.

CHAPTER X

A CHAPTER ABOUT MYSELF

If I may sum up in one term the leading bent of my life, I will simply
call myself a student. Dr. Howe used to say of me: "Mrs. Howe is not a
great reader, but she always studies."

Albeit my intellectual pursuits have always been such as to task my
mind, I cannot boast that I have acquired much in the way of technical
erudition. I have only drawn from history and philosophy some
understanding of human life, some lessons in the value of thought for
thought's sake, and, above all, a sense of the dignity of character
above every other dignity. Goethe chose well for his motto the words:--

"Die Zeit ist mein Vermaechtniss, mein Acker ist die Zeit." "Time is my
inheritance; time is my estate."

But I may choose this for mine:--

"I have followed the great masters with my heart."

The first writer of importance with whom I made acquaintance after
leaving school was Gibbon, whose "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire"
occupied me during one entire winter. I have already mentioned my early
familiarity with the French and Italian languages. In these respective
literatures I read the works which in those days were usually commended
to young women. These were, in French, Lamartine's poems and travels,
Chateaubriand's "Atala" and "Rene," Racine's tragedies, Moliere's
comedies; in Italian, Metastasio, Tasso, Alfieri's dramas and
autobiography. Under dear Dr. Cogswell's tuition, I read Schiller's
plays and prose writings with delight. In later years, Goethe, Herder,
Jean Paul Richter, were added to my repertory. I read Dante with Felice
Foresti, and such works of Sand and Balzac as were allowed within my
reach. I had early acquired some knowledge of Latin, and in later life
found great pleasure in reading the essays and Tusculan dissertations of
Cicero. The view of ethics represented in these writings sometimes
appeared to me of higher tone than the curre