WAREHAM,
December 1st
MY DEAR FATHER,—
As you well know, I have
not always been an enthusiast on the subject of
teaching. The task of cramming knowledge into
these self-sufficient, inefficient youngsters of both
sexes discourages me at times. The more stupid they
are, the less they are aware of it. If my department
were geography or mathematics, I believe I should
feel that I was accomplishing something, for in those
branches application and industry work wonders;
but in English literature and composition one yearns
for brains, for appreciation, for imagination! Month
after month I toil on, opening oyster after oyster,
but seldom finding a pearl. Fancy my joy this term
when, without any violent effort at shell-splitting,
I came upon a rare pearl; a black one, but of satin
skin and beautiful lustre! Her name is Rebecca,
and she looks not unlike Rebekah at the Well in our
family Bible; her hair and eyes being so dark as
to suggest a strain of Italian or Spanish blood. She
is nobody in particular. Man has done nothing for
her; she has no family to speak of, no money, no
education worthy the name, has had no advantages
of any sort; but Dame Nature flung herself into
the breach and said:—
"This child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine and I will make
A Lady of my own."
Blessed Wordsworth! How he makes us understand!
And the pearl never heard of him until now!
Think of reading Lucy to a class, and when you
finish, seeing a fourteen-year-old pair of lips
quivering with delight, and a pair of eyes brimming with
comprehending tears!
You poor darling! You, too, know the
discouragement of sowing lovely seed in rocky earth,
in sand, in water, and (it almost seems sometimes)
in mud; knowing that if anything comes up at all
it will be some poor starveling plant. Fancy the joy
of finding a real mind; of dropping seed in a soil
so warm, so fertile, that one knows there are sure
to be foliage, blossoms, and fruit all in good time!
I wish I were not so impatient and so greedy of
results! I am not fit to be a teacher; no one is
who is so scornful of stupidity as I am. . . . The
pearl writes quaint countrified little verses,
doggerel they are; but somehow or other she always
contrives to put in one line, one thought, one image,
that shows you she is, quite unconsciously to herself,
in possession of the secret. . . . Good-by; I+'ll bring
Rebecca home with me some Friday, and let you
and mother see her for yourselves.
Your affectionate daughter,
EMILY.
