'"
We have seen the profound love she felt for, and the companionship she
found in, nature and natural objects; but combined with these
sentiments, or developed simply by her love to speak more directly,
was a very uncommon power of observation. This power grew day by day,
and the delightful correspondence which existed between Bradford
Torrey and herself, although they had never met face to face, bears
witness to her constant mental record and memory respecting the habits
of birds and woodland manners. Every year we find her longing for
larger knowledge; books and men of science attracted her; and if her
life had been less intensely laborious, in order to make those who
belonged to her comfortable and happy, what might she not have
achieved! Her nature was replete with boundless possibilities, and we
find ourselves asking the old, old question, Must the artist forever
crush the wings by which he flies against such terrible limitations?--
a question never to be answered in this world.
Her observations began with her earliest breath at the islands. "I
remember," she says, "in the spring, kneeling on the ground to seek
the first blades of grass that pricked through the soil, and bringing
them into the house to study and wonder over. Better than a shopful of
toys they were to me! Whence came their color? How did they draw their
sweet, refreshing tint from the brown earth, or the limpid air, or the
white light? Chemistry was not at hand to answer me, and all her
wisdom would not have dispelled the wonder.
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