" Then there were "The Hedge of Thorns;"
"Theophilus and Sophia;" "Anna Ross," and a whole series of
little English books that I took great delight in.
I had begun to be rather introspective and somewhat unhealthily
self-critical, contrasting myself meanwhile with my sister Lida,
just a little older, who was my usual playmate, and whom I
admired very much for what I could not help seeing,--her unusual
sweetness of disposition. I read Mrs. Sherwood's "Infant's
Progress," and I made a personal application of it, picturing
myself as the naughty, willful "Playful," and my sister Lida as
the saintly little "Peace."
This book gave me a morbid, unhappy feeling, while yet it had
something of the fascination of the "Pilgrim's Progress," of
which it is an imitation. I fancied myself followed about by a
fiend-like boy who haunted its pages, called "Inbred-Sin;" and
the story implied that there was no such thing as getting rid of
him. I began to dislike all boys on his account. There was one
who tormented my sister and me--we only knew him by name--by
jumping out at us from behind doorways or fences on our way to
school, making horrid faces at us.
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