第51章 MILL-GIRLS'MAGAZINES(3)

I was too young a contributor to be at first of much value to either periodical.They began their regular issues,I think,while I was the nursemaid of my little nephews at Beverly.When Ireturned to Lowell,at about sixteen,I found my sister Emilie interested in the "Operatives'Magazine,"and we both contributed to it regularly,until it was merged in the "Lowell Offering,"to which we then transferred our writing efforts.It did not occur to us to call these efforts "literary."I know that I wrote just as I did for our little "Diving Bell,"--as a sort of pastime,and because my daily toil was mechanical,and furnished no occupation for my thoughts.Perhaps the fact that most of us wrote in this way accounted for the rather sketchy and fragmentary character of our "Magazine."It gave evidence that we thought,and that we thought upon solid and serious matters;but the criticism of one of our superintendents upon it,very kindly given,was undoubtedly just:"It has plenty of pith,but it lacks point.

The "Offering"had always more of the literary spirit and touch.

It was,indeed,for the first two years,edited by a gentleman of acknowledged literary ability.But people seemed to be more interested in it after it passed entirely into the bands of the girls themselves.

The "Operatives'Magazine"had a decidedly religious tone.We who wrote for it were loyal to our Puritanic antecedents,and considered it all-important that our lightest actions should be moved by some earnest impulse from behind.We might write playfully,but there must be conscience and reverence somewhere within it all.We had been taught,and we believed,that idle words were a sin,whether spoken or written.This,no doubt,gave us a gravity of expression rather unnatural to youth.

In looking over the bound volume of this magazine,I am amused at the grown-up style of thought assumed by myself,probably its very youngest contributor.I wrote a dissertation on "Fame,"quoting from Pollok,Cowper,and Milton,and ending with Diedrich Knickerbocker's definition of immortal fame,--"Half a page of dirty paper."For other titles I had "Thoughts on Beauty;""Gentility;""Sympathy,"etc.And in one longish poem,entitled "My Childhood"(written when I was about fifteen),I find verses like these,which would seem to have come out of a mature experience:--My childhood!O those pleasant days,when everything seemed free,And in the broad and verdant fields I frolicked merrily;When joy came to my bounding heart with every wild bird's song,And Nature's music in my ears was ringing all day long!

And yet I would not call them back,those blessed times of yore,For riper years are fraught with joys I dreamed not of before.

The labyrinth of Science opes with wonders every day;And friendship hath full many a flower to cheer life's dreary way.

And glancing through the pages of the "Lowell Offering"a year or two later,I see that I continued to dismalize myself at times,quite unnecessarily.The title of one sting of morbid verses is "The Complaint of a Nobody,"in which I compare myself to a weed growing up in a garden;and the conclusion of it all is this stanza:--"When the fierce storms are raging,I will not repine,Though I'm heedlessly crushed in the strife;For surely 't were better oblivion were mine Than a worthless,inglorious life.

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 Iwas 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!