d to
know how to do all kinds of sewing, all kinds of cooking, all kinds of
any _woman's_ work, and the consequence is that life is passed in
learning these only, while the universe of truth beyond remains
unentered.

"May 11, 1853. I could not help thinking of Esther [a much-loved cousin
who had recently died] a few evenings since when I was observing. A
meteor flashed upon me suddenly, very bright, very short-lived; it
seemed to me that it was sent for me especially, for it greeted me
almost the first instant I looked up, and was gone in a second,--it was
as fleeting and as beautiful as the smile upon Esther's face the last
time I saw her. I thought when I talked with her about death that,
though she could not come to me visibly, she might be able to influence
my feelings; but it cannot be, for my faith has been weaker than ever
since she died, and my fears have been greater."

A few pages farther on in the diary appears this poem:

"ESTHER

"Living, the hearts of all around
Sought hers as slaves a throne;
Dying, the reason first we found--
The fulness of her own.

"She gave unconsciously the while
A wealth we all might share--
To me the memory of the smile
That last I saw her wear.

"Earth lost from out its meagre store
A bright and precious stone;
Heaven could not be so rich before,
But it has richer grown."

"Sept. 19, 1853. I am surprised to find the verse which I picked up
somewhere and have always admired--

"'Oh, reader, had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
Oh, gentle reader, you would find
A tale in everything'--

belonging to Wordsworth and to one of Wordsworth's simple, I am almost
ready to say _silly_, poems. I am in doubt what to think of Wordsworth.
I should be ashamed of some of his poems if I had written them myself,
and yet there are points of great beauty, and lines which once in the
mind will not leave it.

"Oct. 31, 1853. People have to learn sometimes not only how much the
heart, but how much the head, can bear. My letter came from Cambridge
[the Harvard Observatory], and I had some work to do over. It was a
wearyful job, but by dint of shutting myself up all day I did manage to
get through with it. The good of my travelling showed itself then, when
I was too tired to read, to listen, or to talk; for the beautiful
scenery of the West was with me in the evening, instead of the tedious
columns of logarithms. It