both present. A vase with a bouquet of the flowers she
loved, mignonette, heliotrope, roses, geraniums, was presented to her.
All her life she treasured those dried flowers and the little vase. But
the thing that made this birthday memorable was that not only her music
but her poems were beginning to receive consideration, and one written
at this time was considered worthy of being copied and sent to her
godmother, Miss Hales. A copy in her mother's writing is still extant,
and may be read with interest:

LINES WRITTEN AT TEN YEARS OLD.

When morning appears, and night melts away,
Then comes the bright, dull, or enlivening day;
The dewdrops like pearls on the flowers are shining,
But the sunbeams to dry them are quickly inclining.
The sun now red peeps through the trees,
And now there springs up a freshening breeze.
The flowers which are by the sunbeams extended,
Droop no more o'er their green stalks bended.
All is cheerful and gay, at the dawn of the day,
And March's high winds are flying away.
A shower of rain now darkens the skies,
A few people begin to open their eyes;
It is early, 'tis dawn, 'tis the dawn of the day,
And the darkness of night is fast gliding away.

The child's verses are neither better nor worse than those of many a
little versifier of her age, but they are remarkable because they are
obviously untouched by elders, who could so easily have corrected rhythm
and metre; they are genuine, and they are written by a child who had
apparently forgotten that she had ever seen the light. She had learnt to
love it for some occult and mysterious reason which she could not
explain, perhaps for the physical effect which light exercises upon the
human organism. She loved light, she loved nature, and from early
childhood she loved beautiful scenery. Dreams were always a source of
delight to her, and her dreams were a feature in her life. She would say
that she constantly dreamt about beautiful landscapes. Did some memory
of sight revisit her in dreams? "There were beautiful intuitions in her
music," we are told. Had she "beautiful intuitions" as to sight? Had
she, in her dreams, visions of the scenes that passed before her in
those three first years of which she retained not the slightest
recollection in her waking hours? Beautiful scenery gave her pleasure;
there was always a response to any description of it. Once when a s