Through my life, it has only been
permitted to me as an aside from other more pressing employments.
Whether I should have written better verses had circumstances
left me free to do what I chose, it is impossible now to know.
All my thoughts about my future sent me back to Aunt Hannah and
my first infantile idea of being a teacher. I foresaw that I
should be that before I could be or do any thing else. It had
been impressed upon me that I must make myself useful in the
world, and certainly one could be useful who could "keep school"
as Aunt Hannah did. I did not see anything else for a girl to
do who wanted to use her brains as well as her hands. So the plan
of preparing myself to be a teacher gradually and almost uncon-
sciously shaped itself in my mind as the only practicable one. I
could earn my living in that way,--all-important consideration.
I liked the thought of self-support, but I would have chosen some
artistic or beautiful work if I could. I had no especial aptitude
for teaching, and no absorbing wish to be a teacher, but it
seemed to me that I might succeed if I tried.
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