When I Heard That There Were Artists,

The New Hampshire Girls Who Came To Lowell Were Descendants Of The Sturdy Backwoodsmen Who Settled That State Scarcely A Hundred Years Before.... They Were Earnest And Capable; Ready To Undertake Anything That Was Worth Doing. My Dreamy, Indolent Nature Was Shamed Into Activity Among Them. They Gave Me A Larger, Firmer Ideal Of Womanhood.

We Were Not Meant To Mask Ourselves Before Our Fellow-beings, But To Be, Through Our Human Forms, True And Clear Utterances Of The Spirit Within. Since God Gave Us These Bodies, They Must Have Been Given Us As Guides To Him And Revealers Of Him.

The Soul, Cramped Among The Petty Vexations Of Earth, Needs To Keep Its Windows Constantly Open To The Invigorating Air Of Large And Free Ideas: And What Thought Is So Grand As That Of An Ever-present God, In Whom All That Is Vital In Humanity Breathes And Grows?

The Peach-bud Glows, The Wild Bee Hums, And Wind-flowers Wave In Graceful Gladness.

I Defied The Machinery To Make Me Its Slave. Its Incessant Discords Could Not Drown The Music Of My Thoughts If I Would Let Them Fly High Enough.