It is pleasant to me to find my name in such good company as it is in your pages, and if anything I have written has ever given you pleasure this volume has amply repaid me.
P.S. (Worth all the rest). I got a letter from Mr. Whittier which reads as follows:--
“Has thee seen Miss Larcom’s ‘Cape Ann’? I like it, and in reading it I thought thee would also. Get it and see if she has not a right to stand with the rest of us. Wishing thee a pleasant Thanksgiving after the manner of the enclosed card, I am faithfully thy friend,
DEAR MISS LARCOM,--I thank you very much for your beautiful volume of beautiful poems. I have been reading it this morning with great enjoyment.
I always liked your poetry, and now like it more than ever. It is not merely verse, but possesses the true poetic instinct and insight.
One little song among the many particularly charms me. It is “At her Bedside.” It ought to be set to music. Thanks, and all good wishes.
The true poetic temperament has in it an element of religion; for religion and poetry both deal with the spiritual interpretation of life, and one who possesses the temperament for either is conscious of the vastness overshadowing common things, and sees the infinite meaning of the apparent finiteness of the visible world. The delicate perception of truth which is a distinctive quality of the poet often leads to the deep appreciation of the spirit in and through nature, and enables one to feel and know God.
Lucy Larcom possessed the poetic temperament, with this strong element of religion. She was pre-eminently religious, in the sense of possessing a spiritual power, dealing continually with spiritual things. She began early to interpret life in the light of divine truth; and truth made real in human character she considered the one thing worth striving for.
Her relations to organized Christianity are particularly interesting. Doubtless the history of her connection with the churches is a type of that of other lives numerous in our generation that have become dissatisfied with the communions in which they have been trained, and after a period of uncertainty and unrest have found a home in the Episcopal Church.
Her religious life began in a Puritan home, and in a Congregational meeting-house. The strong ethical teaching of her fathers made a lasting impression on her, and the dogmatic preaching of Calvinism influenced her young life. From both she gained a love for the simplicity of living which characterized her career, and that dearness of conscience which she always displayed. There was also a joy to her under the austerity of the worship, and the sternness of the theology. The sermons suggested new thoughts, which forced themselves between the sentences of the minister, and in this way she preached to herself another sermon than that spoken from the pulpit.