The only preparation she had made for this book was a few notes suggesting a title and headings of the chapters. She proposed naming it, “Hitherward: A Life-Path Retraced.” The suggestions for chapters indicate the subjects that she intended to treat,--“The Charm of Elsewhere;” “Over the Prairies;” “Log-Cabin Experiences;” “A Pioneer Schoolmistress;” “Teacher and Student;” “Back to the Bay State;” “Undercurrents;” “Beneath Norton Elms;” “During the War;” “With ‘Our Young Folks;’” “Successful Failures;” and “Going On.”
After her death, her papers came into my possession. An examination showed that there was material enough in her letters and diary to preserve still some record of her later life, and possibly to continue the narrative which she had given in “A New England Girlhood.”
It will be noticed that some years are treated more at length than others, the reason for this being that more data have been accessible for those periods; and also, as is the case with most lives, there were epochs of intenser emotion, more lasting experiences, and deeper friendships, the account of which is of greater value to the general reader than the more commonplace incidents of her career.
Her life was one of thought, not of action. In their outward movement, her days flowed on very smoothly. She had no remarkable adventures; but she had a constant succession of mental vicissitudes, which are often more dramatic and real than the outward events of even a varied life. In her loves and sympathies, in her philosophy of living and her creed, in her literary labors,--her poetry and her prose,--in her studies of man, nature, and God, she revealed a mind continually venturing into the known and unknown, and bringing back trophies of struggles and victories, of doubts and beliefs, of despair and faith. My aim has been to present the character of a New England woman, as it was thus moulded by the intellectual and moral forces of American living for the last fifty years; and to show how she absorbed the best from all sides, and responded to the highest influences.
There are passages in her diaries that remind one of Pascal’s “Thoughts,” for their frankness and spiritual depth; there are others that recall Amiel’s Journal, with its record of emotions and longings after light. If such a singularly transparent and pure life had preserved for us its inner history, it would be more valuable than any record of mere outward events. Some such inner history I have attempted to give, by making selections from her journal and letters; and if, at times, I have allowed her inmost thoughts and motives to be disclosed, it has been with the feeling that such frankness would be helpful in portraying a soul stirred with love for the beautiful, a heart loving humanity, a spirit with the passion for God in it. She once said, “I am willing to make any part of my life public, if it will help others.”