And although I never stood face to
face with mountains until I was a mature woman, always, after
this vision of them, they were blended with my dream of whatever
is pure and lofty in human possibilities,--like a white ideal
beckoning me on.
Since I am writing these recollections for the young, I may say
here that I regard a love for poetry as one of the most needful
and helpful elements in the life-outfit of a human being. It
was the greatest of blessings to me, in the long days of toil to
which I was shut in much earlier than most young girls are, that
the poetry I held in my memory breathed its enchanted atmosphere
through me and around me, and touched even dull drudgery with its
sunshine.
Hard work, however, has its own illumination--if done as duty
which worldliness has not; and worldliness seems to be the
greatest temptation and danger Of young people in this genera-
tion. Poetry is one of the angels whose presence will drive out
this sordid demon, if anything less than the Power of the Highest
can.
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