A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)

In looking over the bound volume of this magazine, I am amused at the grown-up style of thought assumed by myself, probably its very youngest contributor. I wrote a dissertation on "Fame," quoting from Pollok, Cowper, and Milton, and ending with Diedrich Knickerbocker's definition of immortal fame,--"Half a page of dirty paper." For other titles I had "Thoughts on Beauty;" "Gentility;" "Sympathy," etc. And in one longish poem, entitled "My Childhood" (written when I was about fifteen), I find verses like these, which would seem to have come out of a mature experience:-- My childhood! O those pleasant days, when everything seemed free, And in the broad and verdant fields I frolicked merrily; When joy came to my bounding heart with every wild bird's song, And Nature's music in my ears was ringing all day long! And yet I would not call them back, those blessed times of yore, For riper years are fraught with joys I dreamed not of before. The labyrinth of Science opes with wonders every day; And friendship hath full many a flower to cheer life's dreary way. And glancing through the pages of the "Lowell Offering" a year or two later, I see that I continued to dismalize myself at times, quite unnecessarily. The title of one sting of morbid verses is "The Complaint of a Nobody," in which I compare myself to a weed growing up in a garden; and the conclusion of it all is this stanza:-- "When the fierce storms are raging, I will not repine, Though I'm heedlessly crushed in the strife; For surely 't were better oblivion were mine Than a worthless, inglorious life.