more excusable in a chameleon like me. Yet, whatever may be the vulgar view of my character, I can truly say, I know not the hour in which I ever looked for the ridiculous. It has always been forced upon me, and is the accident of my existence. I would not want the sense of it when it comes, for that would show an obtuseness of mental organization; but, on peril of my soul, I would not move an eyelash to look for it.’
When she came to Concord, she was already rich in
friends, rich in experiences, rich in culture. She was
well read in French, Italian, and German literature. She
had learned Latin and a little Greek. But her English
reading was incomplete; and, while she knew Molière,
and Rousseau, and any quantity of French letters,
memoirs, and novels, and was a dear student of Dante
and Petrarca, and knew German books more cordially
than any other person, she was little read in
Shakspeare; and I believe I had the pleasure of making her
acquainted with Chaucer, with Ben Jonson, with
Herbert, Chapman, Ford, Beaumont and Fletcher, with
Bacon, and Sir Thomas Browne. I was seven years
her senior, and had the habit of idle reading in old
English books, and, though not much versed, yet quite
enough to give me the right to lead her. She fancied
that her sympathy and taste had led her to an exclusive
culture of southern European books.
She had large experiences. She had been a precocious scholar at Dr. Park's school; good in mathematics and in languages. Her father, whom she had recently lost, had been proud of her, and petted her. She had drawn, at Cambridge, numbers of lively young men about her. She had had a circle of young women who were devoted
