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140 forget that I am old. They sit by my side as if I were their own relative. By their help I travel every day through the world of books; and their tones are so clear, and distinct, and sweet, that sometimes I think I am hearing an angel's song."

Among my solitary satisfactions was a journal. It was commenced of my own accord when a school-girl of eleven. Its sole object then was a record of my studies. One day was almost a fac-simile of the other. The length of the lessons in grammar and geography, history, rhetoric, and philosophy, the number of sums in arithmetic, or problems in geometry, were its unvaried themes. Their only embellishment was a couplet or stanza, savoring of Sternhold and Hopkins, which here and there inserted itself perforce, like a slender grass-blade peeping through the crevices of a log tenement. Feeling that the habit might be conducive to improvement, I recommenced it after leaving school; and having tried my skill in bookbinding upon a large volume of foolscap, whose exterior was marble paper made thick by some of my own paintings pasted on the inside, and interleaved by a map of the world which I had carefully executed, I dedicated it as a journal on my thirteenth birthday. This was done without advice from others, and intended for no eye but my own. Yet it repaid me by becoming a sort of companion and confidant. As I showed it the respect of always writing in it with neatness, and reserving for it my best