Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/24

18 an example of originality of no ordinary character. She was allowed, and even encouraged, to follow the leading of her own genius; but nothing was forced upon her, nothing suggested, or placed before her as a lure; her literary efforts were altogether the natural workings of her own mind.

There is another circumstance respecting her habits of composition, which peculiarly claims our attention. She did not seem to have the power of retaining the creations of her own fancy, for a long time, in her own mind. If, during the vigil of a wakeful night, she amused herself by weaving a tale, she knew nothing of it in the morning—it had vanished in the land of dreams. Her kind mistress indulged her with a light, and in the cold season with a fire, in her apartment, during the night. The light was placed upon a table at her bed-side, with writing materials, that if anything occurred to her after she had retired, she might, without rising or taking cold, secure the swift-winged fancy, ere it fled.

We have before remarked, that Mrs. Wheatley did not require or permit her services as a domestic; but she would sometimes allow her to polish a table or dust an apartment, (occupations which were not thought derogatory to the dignity of a lady in those days of primitive simplicity,) or engage in some other trifling occupation that would break in upon her sedentary habits; but not unfrequently, in these