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

Life to me, as I looked forward, was a bright blank of mystery, like the broad Western tracts of our continent, which in the atlases of those days bore the title of "Unexplored Regions." It was to be penetrated, struggled through; and its difficulties were not greatly dreaded, for I had not lost "The dream of Doing,-- The first bound in the pursuing." I knew that there was no joy like the joy of pressing forward. XII. FROM THE MERRIMACK TO THE MISSISSIPPI. THE years between 1835 and 1845, which nearly cover the time I lived at Lowell, seem to me, as I look back at them, singularly interesting years. People were guessing and experimenting and wondering and prophesying about a great many things,--about almost everything. We were only beginning to get accustomed to steamboats and railroads. To travel by either was scarcely less an adventure to us younger ones than going up in a balloon. Phrenology was much talked about; and numerous "professors" of it came around lecturing, and examining heads, and making charts of cranial "bumps." This was profitable business to them for a while, as almost everybody who invested in a "character" received a good one; while many very commonplace people were flattered into the belief that they were geniuses, or might be if they chose. Mesmerism followed close upon phrenology; and this too had its lecturers, who entertained the stronger portion of their audiences by showing them how easily the weaker ones could be brought under an uncanny influence.