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.