Many born poets, I am
afraid, flower poorly in song, or not at all, because they have been too
often transplanted.
Then a good many of our race are very hard and unimaginative;--their
voices have nothing caressing; their movements are as of machinery
without elasticity or oil. I wish it were fair to print a letter a young
girl, about the age of our Iris, wrote a short time since. "I am *** ***
***," she says, and tells her whole name outright. Ah!--said I, when I
read that first frank declaration,--you are one of the right sort!--She
was. A winged creature among close-clipped barn door fowl. How tired
the poor girl was of the dull life about her,--the old woman's "skeleton
hand" at the window opposite, drawing her curtains,--"Ma'am shooing away
the hens,"--the vacuous country eyes staring at her as only country eyes
can stare,--a routine of mechanical duties, and the soul's
half-articulated cry for sympathy, without an answer! Yes,--pray for
her, and for all such! Faith often cures their longings; but it is so
hard to give a soul to heaven that has not first been trained in the
fullest and sweetest human affections! Too often they fling their hearts
away on unworthy objects.
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