fancies, or despairing fears and gloomy forebodings.  In one of her letters from this seminary, she writes thus to her mother:  “I hope you will feel no uneasiness as to my health or happiness; for, save the thoughts of my dear mother and her lonely life, and the idea that my dear father is slaving himself, and wearing out his very life, to earn a subsistence for his family—­save these thoughts (and I can assure you, mother, they come not seldom), I am happy.  Oh! how often I think, if I could have but one-half the means I now expend, and be at liberty to divide that with mamma, how happy I should be!—­cheer up and keep good courage.”  In another, she says:  “Oh!  I am so happy, so contented now, that every unusual movement startles me.  I am constantly afraid that something will happen to mar it.”  Again, she says:  “I hope the expectations of my friends will not be disappointed:  but I am afraid you all calculate upon too much.  I hope not, for I am not capable of much.  I can study and be industrious; but I fear I shall not equal the hopes which you say are raised.”  The story of Kirke White should operate not more as an example than a warning; but the example is followed and the warning overlooked.  Stimulants are administered to minds which are already in a state of feverish excitement.  Hotbeds and glasses are used for plants which can only acquire strength in the shade; and they are drenched with instruction, which ought “to drop as the rain, and distil as the dew—­as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the shower upon the grass.”

During the vacation, in which she returned home, she had a serious illness, which left her feeble and more sensitive than ever.  On her recovery she was placed at the school of Miss Gilbert, in Albany; and there, in a short time, a more alarming illness brought her to the very borders of the grave.  Before she entered upon her intemperate course of application at Troy, her verses show that she felt a want of joyous and healthy feeling—­a sense of decay.  Thus she wrote to a friend, who had not seen her since her childhood:—­

  And thou hast mark’d in childhood’s hour
    The fearless boundings of my breast,
  When fresh as summer’s opening flower,
    I freely frolick’d and was blest.

  Oh say, was not this eye more bright? 
    Were not these lips more wont to smile? 
  Methinks that then my heart was light,
    And I a fearless, joyous child

  And thou didst mark me gay and wild,
    My careless, reckless laugh of mirth: 
  The simple pleasures of a child,
    The holiday of man on earth.

  Then thou hast seen me in that hour,
    When every nerve of life was new,
  When pleasures fann’d youth’s infant flower,
    And Hope her witcheries round it threw.

  That hour is fading; it has fled;
    And I am left in darkness now,
  A wanderer tow’rds a lowly bed,
    The grave, that home of all below.