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A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
196
And,
indeed,
no
young
man
could
have
valued
it
more
than
I
did.
It
contained
selections
from
standard
poets,
and
choice
ones
from
less
familiar
sources.
One
of
the
extracts
was
Wordsworth's
"Sunset
among
the
Mountains,"
from
the
"Excursion,"
to
read
which,
however
often,
always
lifted
me
into
an
ecstasy.
That
red
morocco
book
was
my
treasure.
It
traveled
with
me
to
the
West,
and
I
meant
to
keep
it
as
long
as
I
lived.
But
alas!
it
was
borrowed
by
a
little
girl
out
on
the
Illinois
prairies,
who
never
brought
it
back.
I
do
not
know
that
I
have
ever
quite
forgiven
her.
I
have
wished
I
could
look
into
it
again,
often
and
often
through
the
years.
But
perhaps
I
ought
to
be
grateful
to
that
little
girl
for
teaching
me
to
be
careful
about
returning
borrowed
books
myself.
Only
a
lover
of
them
can
appreciate
the
loss
of
one
which
has
been
a
possession
from
childhood.
Young
and
Cowper
were
considered
religious
reading,
and
as
such
I
had
always
known
something
of
them.
The
songs
of
Burns
were
in
the
air.
Through
him
I
best
learned
to
know
poetry
as
song.
I
think
that
I
heard
the
"Cotter's
Saturday
Night"
and
"A
man's
a
man
for
a'
that"
more
frequently
quoted
than
any
other
poems
familiar
to
my
girlhood.
Some
of
my
work-folk
acquaintances
were
regular
subscribers
to
"Blackwood's
Magazine"
and
the
"Westminster"
and
"Edinburgh"
reviews,
and
they
lent
them
to
me.
These,
and
Macaulay's
"Essays,"
were
a
great
help
and
delight.
I
had
also
the
reading
of
the
"Bibliotheca
Sacra"
and
the
"New
Englander;"
and
sometimes
of
the
"North
American
Review."
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