BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 105 



"In reply to what you need, I can give you this from my 

 own experience, that life is only bearable when lived de- 

 pending upon one's own resources for passing the time, and 

 upon the few spiritually congenial persons with whom I 

 have formed lasting friendships. Your literary tastes above 

 all means cultivate; and write, and write, and write, no mat- 

 ter how poorly it reads. You will be improving your powers of 

 expression; also seek to employ new words to increase your 

 vocabulary. Literature is worth living for when made a means 

 to give expression to the development of the writer's char- 

 acter and soul. As mere ornamentation, or to pander to the 

 conventionalisms of the day, literature, as a life, is very un- 

 satisfactory when devoted to such false ends. 



" You may rest assured that even if you do not find congenial 

 sympathy for your tastes and occupations, that is no reason 

 to feel discouraged over their pursuit. 



* Loving ! what claim to love has work of mine ? . . . 

 I looked beyond the world for truth and beauty : 

 Sought, found, and did my duty.' 



You know the poet? No need to say who said these words. 



" I have found some beautiful passages in Walt Whitman's 

 prose volume to read you. ... I feel as if I had lost all 

 my thoughts and, until this indigestion stops, I feel I shall be 

 unable to think. I have not read lately; to pass the time I 

 mended some stockings for want of something else to do. I 

 read what George Sand said on this subject only a few days 

 ago: ' Sewing is the work of female captivity.' I had come 

 to the same conclusion before reading the passage when 

 my mind was too weak for anything else, I took to sew- 

 ing, and I think this the state of the great mass of female 

 minds." 



In spite of her intense love of independence and her ad- 

 vanced thought Mrs. Michael was always essentially and 

 delightfully feminine. Her love for nature and all beautiful 

 things found expression in many of her essays in verse, nota- 

 bly in a little prose poem which describes a field bounded by 

 "stately groves of trees." It thus concludes: 



