I cannot
narrate my workmates' separate experiences, but I know that
because of having lived among them, and because of having felt
the beauty and power of their lives, I am different from what I
should otherwise have been, and it is my own fault if I am not
better for my life with them.
In recalling those years of my girlhood at Lowell, I often think
that I knew then what real society is better perhaps than ever
since. For in that large gathering together of young womanhood
there were many choice natures---some of the choicest in all our
excellent New England, and there were no false social standards
to hold them apart. It is the best society when people meet
sincerely, on the ground of their deepest sympathies and highest
aspirations, without conventionality or cliques or affectation;
and it was in that way that these young girls met and became
acquainted with each other, almost of necessity.
There were all varieties of woman-nature among them, all degrees
of refinement and cultivation, and, of course, many sharp
contrasts of agreeable and disagreeable.
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