"You were pleased with its beauty," I said.
"Oh! It was more than that. I do not know whether I was or was not a youngster with an imagination, but suddenly the spiritual view of a new or of another life struck me. I saw in this jewel born from an unadorned casket some inkling of immortality. Yes, that butterfly breaking from its chrysalis in my hand shaped my future career."
"But some young people may feel passing impulses, but how account for your artistic skill and literary powers?"
"As to the art side, at least deftness of hand came early. I had the most methodical of grandmothers. Every day I had a certain task. I made a square of patch-work for a quilt. I learned how to sew, and I can sew neatly to-day. I knew how to use my fingers."
"Did you like patch-work?" I inquired.
"I simply despised it. Sewing must have helped me, for it was eye-training, and when I went to work with a pencil and a paint-brush I really had no trouble. I read a great deal. I devoured Cooper's novels and the Rollo series: but there was one special volume, 'Harris on Insects,' I never tired of. I studied that over and over again. It was the illustrations of Marsh which fascinated me. I never found a bug, caterpillar, or butterfly that I did not compare my specimens with the Marsh pictures. I learned this way much which I have never forgotten."
"Had you any particular advantages?"
"Yes; my brother was a doctor, and he let me use his microscope, and so I acquired a knowledge of the details of flowers and insects that escape the naked eye. I pulled flowers to pieces, but not in the spirit of destruction, but so that I might better understand their structure. When I was ten I had a long illness. When I was getting better I was permitted to take an hour's or so turn in the garden. That hour I devoted to collecting insects and flowers. On my return to my room, what I had collected amused me until I could get out again next day or the day after."
"It was pleasure and study combined," I said.
"I was not conscious that I was studying. Then in my sick-room I began to draw and paint the insects. I think I was conscientious about it, and careful—perhaps minutely so. I tried to put on paper exactly what I saw, and nothing else. You say you like 'Professor Wriggler.' I drew him when I was ten or eleven, and I could not make him any more accurate to-day than I did thirty years ago."