She died,
Yet as a day of storms will ofttimes sink
With a rich burst of sunlight at its close,
Thus did the rays of happiness illume
Her parting spirit.
By this time my eyes would be suffused and my voice tremulous; but the butter had come, and Grandma would come down-cellar and pour a little cold water into the churn to help the butter “gather”; and despite Emma C. Embury and her ill-fated maidens, I would drink copiously of that most delicious beverage, butter-milk from Grandma’s little red churn.
It was a heterogeneous lot of books that I read the last four years in school—there was perhaps more system during the last two—and though I had little discrimination myself, I was aggrieved if the interference of parents or teachers took the form of anything more positive than suggestion.
How fascinating I found the historical novels of Louise Mühlbach! What cared I if they were not reliable as history? I turned unwillingly from them to Scott at the earnest solicitation of my teachers. The “Correspondence between Goethe and Bettina” made a deep impression upon me. I should like to see the identical copy I read; it opened up a new world. And a translation of Faust by Agnes Swanwick, moved me strangely. I copied favourite passages from it in a blank book, conning them again and again. Faust’s apostrophe to the radiant moonlight would put me in an exalted mood whenever I read it, especially the latter part: “Oh! that I might wander on the mountain tops in thy loved light—hover with spirits around the mountain caves, flit over the fields in thy glimmer, and, disencumbered from all the fumes of knowledge, bathe myself sound in thy dew!” I copied sentimental passages in German script. I would have blushed to have it known how much I liked this:
His stately step,
His noble form;