Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
195
With
Milton
I
was
more
familiar
than
with
any
other
poet,
and
from
thirteen
years
of
age
to
eighteen
he
was
my
preference.
My
friend
Angeline
and
I
(another
of
my
cloth-room
associates)
made
the
"Paradise
Lost"
a
language-study
in
an
evening
class,
under
one
of
the
grammar
school
masters,
and
I
never
open
to
the
majestic
lines,--
"High
on
a
throne
of
royal
state,
which
far
Outshone
the
wealth
of
Ormus
and
of
Ind,
Or
where
the
gorgeous
east
with
richest
hand
Showers
on
her
kings
barbaric
pearl
and
gold,"--
Without
seeing
Angeline's
kindly,
homely
face
out-lined
through
that
magnificence,
instead
of
the
lineaments
of
the
evil
angel
"by
merit
raised
To
that
bad
eminence."
She,
too,
was
much
older
than
I,
and
a
most
excellent,
energetic,
and
studious
young
woman.
I
wonder
if
she
remembers
how
hard
we
tried
to
get
"Beelzebub--than
whom,
Satan
except,
none
higher
sat,"
into
the
limits
of
our
grammatical
rules,--not
altogether
with
success,
I
believe.
I
copied
passages
from
Jeremy
Taylor
and
the
old
theologians
into
my
note-books,
and
have
found
them
useful
even
recently,
in
preparing
compilations.
Dryden
and
the
eighteenth
century
poets
generally
did
not
interest
me,
though
I
tried
to
read
them
from
a
sense
of
duty.
Pope
was
an
exception,
however.
Aphorisms
from
the
"Essay
on
Man"
were
in
as
common
use
among
us
as
those
from
the
Book
of
Proverbs.
Some
of
my
choicest
extracts
were
in
the
first
volume
of
collected
poetry
I
ever
owned,
a
little
red
morocco
book
called
"The
Young
Man's
Book
of
Poetry."
It
was
given
me
by
one
of
my
sisters
when
I
was
about
a
dozen
years
old,
who
rather
apologized
for
the
young
man
on
the
title-page,
saying
that
the
poetry
was
just
as
good
as
if
he
were
not
there.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
