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[56] her last summer in Groton she wrote this letter to her friend Samuel G. Ward, showing at once how external nature had made her a student and observer of itself, and how penetrating and imaginative were her powers of mind. I know of no more delicate analysis of one of the most recondite and elusive aspects of nature.


Groton, 20th April, 1836.
You have probably just received a packet from me, (oh! what wild work makes a female pen!) yet I feel tempted to scribble to you, my fellow votary, on the subject of this morning's devotions to our common shrine.

I strolled languidly far and far over the dull-brown fields, and not an attempt at a life-like tint could I see. Some tawny evergreens and oaks, with their last year's leaves lingering, “ like unloved guests,” in vain attempted to give animation to the landscape. The sweetest southwest wind was blowing, but it did not make the heavens very blue, and was not enough for me, who wanted something to look at, and had not vital energy enough to be made happy through the pores of my skin. I was returning homeward quite comfortless and ill-paid for my time and trouble, when I suddenly came upon just what I wanted. It was a little shallow pool of the clearest amber. The afore-mentioned southwest was at work to some purpose, breaking it into exquisite wavelets, which flashed a myriad of diamonds up at each instant.

Why is it that the sight of water stirs and fills the mind so much more than that of any other thing in nature?--why? Is it that here we see the most subtle force combined with the most winning gentleness, or the most impetuous force with the most irresistible subtlety?


Hougton, Mifflin and Company, 1890.

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