"
It is a very youthful weakness to exaggerate passing moods into
deep experiences, and if we put them down on paper, we get a fine
opportunity of laughing at ourselves, if we live to outgrow them,
as most of us do. I think I must have had a frequent fancy that I
was not long for this world. Perhaps I thought an early death
rather picturesque; many young people do. There is a certain kind
of poetry that fosters this idea; that delights in imaginary
youthful victims, and has, reciprocally, its youthful devotees.
One of my blank verse poems in the "Offering" is entitled "The
Early Doomed." It begins,--
And must I die? The world is bright to me,
And everything that looks upon me, smiles.
Another poem is headed "Memento Mori;" and another, entitled a
"Song in June," which ought to be cheerful, goes off into the
doleful request to somebody, or anybody, to
Weave me a shroud in the month of June!
I was, perhaps, healthier than the average girl, and had no
predisposition to a premature decline; and in reviewing these
absurdities of my pen, I feel like saying to any young girl who
inclines to rhyme, "Don't sentimentalize!" Write more of what
you see than of what you feel, and let your feelings realize
themselves to others in the shape of worthy actions.
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