Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/117

Rh infinitely kind to me. But I shall return to them; with them I shall have my head-quarters, and my home whenever I return into this neighbourhood; such was the agreement between us before we parted.

On Tuesday I dined with Mrs. Kirkland, the author of that excellent and amusing book, “A New Home in the West,” and saw in the evening from sixty to seventy of her friends. Amongst these was a remarkably agreeable gentleman from Illinois, who invited me to his house there, and who promised to be my cicerone in that part of the great west. Mrs. Kirkland is one of the strong women of the country, with much à plomb, but with also much womanliness both of heart and soul, kind as a mother, a friend and fellow-citizen; one whom I like, and of a character to which I feel myself attracted; her beautiful smile and the flash of her brown eye, when she becomes animated, betray the spirit which lives in her book of the “New Home,” but over which the misfortunes and burden of life seem afterwards to have cast a veil.

On Wednesday I was taken to a lady's academy, called “the Rutger Institution,” from the name of the founder, and here I saw four hundred and sixty young girls, and some excellent arrangements for their instruction and cultivation. I also heard and read several compositions by the young girls, both in prose and verse; and I could not but admire the perspicuity of thought, the perfection of the language, and above all, the living and beautiful feeling for life which these productions displayed. Genius, properly so called, I did not find in them; and I question the wisdom of that publicity which is given to such youthful efforts. I fear that it may awaken ambition and an inclination to give importance to literary activity, which befools many young minds, while so few are possessed of the divine gift of genius which alone makes literature as well as authors good for