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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
199
Our
minister
offered
to
instruct
the
young
people
of
his
parish
in
ethics,
and
my
sister
Emilie
and
myself
were
among
his
pupils.
We
came
to
regard
Wayland's
"Moral
Science"
(our
text-book)
as
most
interesting
reading,
and
it
furnished
us
with
many
subjects
for
thought
and
for
social
discussion.
Carlyle's
"Hero-Worship"
brought
us
a
startling
and
keen
enjoyment.
It
was
lent
me
by
a
Dartmouth
College
student,
the
brother
of
one
of
my
room-mates,
soon
after
it
was
first
published
in
this
country.
The
young
man
did
not
seem
to
know
exactly
what
to
think
of
it,
and
wanted
another
reader's
opinion.
Few
persons
could
have
welcomed
those
early
writings
of
Carlyle
more
enthusiastically
than
some
of
us
working-girls
did.
The
very
ruggedness
of
the
sentences
had
a
fascination
for
us,
like
that
of
climbing
over
loose
bowlders
in
a
mountain
scramble
to
get
sight
of
a
wonderful
landscape.
My
room-mate,
the
student's
sister,
was
the
possessor
of
an
electrifying
new
poem,--"Festus,"--that
we
sat
up
nights
to
read.
It
does
not
seem
as
if
it
could
be
more
than
forty
years
since
Sarah
and
I
looked
up
into
each
other's
face
from
the
page
as
the
lamplight
grew
dim,
and
said,
quoting
from
the
poem,--
"Who
can
mistake
great
thoughts?"
She
gave
me
the
volume
afterwards,
when
we
went
West
together,
and
I
have
it
still.
Its
questions
and
conjectures
were
like
a
glimpse
into
the
chaos
of
our
own
dimly
developing
inner
life.
The
fascination
of
"Festus"
was
that
of
wonder,
doubt,
and
dissent,
with
great
outbursts
of
an
overmastering
faith
sweeping
over
our
minds
as
we
read.
Some
of
our
friends
thought
it
not
quite
safe
reading;
but
we
remember
it
as
one
of
the
inspirations
of
our
workaday
youth.
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