Now I do not suppose that I really considered myself a weed, though I did sometimes fancy that a different kind of cultivation would tend to make me a more useful plant. I am glad to remember that these discontented fits were only occasional, for certainly they were unreasonable. I was not unhappy; this was an affect- ation of unhappiness; and half conscious that it was, I hid it behind a different signature from my usual one

How truly Wordsworth describes this phase of undeveloped feeling:--

"In youth sad fancies we affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness."

It is a very youthful weakness to exaggerate passing moods into deep experiences, and if we put them down on paper, we get a fine opportunity of laughing at ourselves, if we live to outgrow them, as most of us do. I think I must have had a frequent fancy that I was not long for this world. Perhaps I thought an early death rather picturesque; many young people do. There is a certain kind of poetry that fosters this idea; that delights in imaginary youthful victims, and has, reciprocally, its youthful devotees. One of my blank verse poems in the "Offering" is entitled "The Early Doomed." It begins,--

And must I die? The world is bright to me, And everything that looks upon me, smiles.

Another poem is headed "Memento Mori;" and another, entitled a "Song in June," which ought to be cheerful, goes off into the doleful request to somebody, or anybody, to

Weave me a shroud in the month of June!

I was, perhaps, healthier than the average girl, and had no predisposition to a premature decline; and in reviewing these absurdities of my pen, I feel like saying to any young girl who inclines to rhyme, "Don't sentimentalize!" Write more of what you see than of what you feel, and let your feelings realize themselves to others in the shape of worthy actions. Then they will be natural, and will furnish you with something worth writing."