incurable illness, I derived incomparably more entertainment and delight from these mental reveries, and in silently contemplating the beauties and wonders of the visible creation, than in associating with my youthful companions; though I was not averse to society, especially that in which I could find a congenial spirit, and such I highly enjoyed. My favorite amusements were invariably found, when health permitted, in viewing and admiring the varied and soul-filling works of the great Creator; in listening to the music of the winds and waves with an ineffable and indefinable delight; in reading books that were instructive and interesting; in pursuing, without interruption, a pleasing train of thought; and in the elysian scenes of fancy. My employments were chiefly of a domestic kind, and my inclinations and habits those of activity and industry. I had never the most remote and vague apprehension, that my mental capacities, even if cultivated, were competent for productive efforts; with few exceptions, it was not till several years after the commencement of excruciating illness, that my thoughts and feelings were committed to paper, in the form of poetry; and the sole cause of the production of many little pieces, since that period, was, that in them my mind found some small relief from the pressure of incessant suffering, though, from the prevalence of bodily languor, it was possible to derive only transient amusement from thus occupying my thoughts;—if longer persisted in, partial faintness and an insupportable agony of the brain ensued.
I was frequently, during childhood, the subject of religious impressions, especially when hearing or reading of the love of Christ, the depravity of the human heart, and the happiness or misery of a future state. But these impressions were fleeting; and it was not till my eighteenth year, that any abiding
