Lab
Library
Journal
Shop
Sign in
to keep
Share image
1
222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
207
Various
other
papers
were
read,--stories,
sketches,
etc.,
and
after
the
reading
there
was
a
little
conversation,
when
he
came
and
spoke
to
me.
I
let
the
friend
who
had
accompanied
me
do
my
part
of
the
talking
for
I
was
too
much
overawed
by
the
presence
of
one
whose
poetry
I
had
so
long
admired,
to
say
a
great
deal.
But
from
that
evening
we
knew
each
other
as
friends;
and,
of
course,
the
day
has
a
white
mark
among
memories
of
my
Lowell
life.
Mr.
Whittier's
visit
to
Lowell
had
some
political
bearing
upon
the
antislavery
cause.
It
is
strange
now
to
think
that
a
cause
like
that
should
not
always
have
been
our
country's
cause,--our
country,--our
own
free
nation!
But
antislavery
sentiments
were
then
regarded
by
many
as
traitorous
heresies;
and
those
who
held
them
did
not
expect
to
win
popularity.
If
the
vote
of
the
mill-girls
had
been
taken,
it
would
doubtless
have
been
unanimous
on
the
antislavery
side.
But
those
were
also
the
days
when
a
woman
was
not
expected
to
give,
or
even
to
have,
an
opinion
on
subjects
of
public
interest.
Occasionally
a
young
girl
was
attracted
to
the
Lowell
mills
through
her
own
idealization
of
the
life
there,
as
it
had
been
reported
to
her.
Margaret
Foley,
who
afterwards
became
distinguished
as
a
sculptor,
was
one
of
these.
She
did
not
remain
many
months
at
her
occupation,--which
I
think
was
weaving,--soon
changing
it
for
that
of
teaching
and
studying
art.
Those
who
came
as
she
did
were
usually
disappointed.
Instead
of
an
Arcadia,
they
found
a
place
of
matter-of-fact
toil,
filled
with
a
company
of
industrious,
wide-awake
girls,
who
were
faithfully
improving
their
opportunities,
while
looking
through
them
into
avenues
Toward
profit
and
usefulness,
more
desirable
yet.
It
has
always
been
the
way
of
the
steady-minded
New
Englander
to
accept
the
present
situation--but
to
accept
it
without
boundaries,
taking
in
also
the
larger
prospects--all
the
heavens
above
and
the
earth
beneath--towards
which
it
opens.
Marker
Marker
Fine marker
White-out
Fine white-out
Circle
Paint
Unmarker
Hand
Scalpel
Dice
Sieve
Purify
Undo
Redo
Start over
