Page:The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson (1924).pdf/47

Rh teachers kind and attentive, the table better than she supposed possible for so many, the atmosphere pleasant and happy. "Things seem more like home than I anticipated," was her feeling, after the first natural strangeness wore off. Each girl was required by the curriculum to do her share of the domestic work, and Emily did not find hers difficult, which was "to carry the knives from the first tier of tables at morning and at noon, and at night to wash and wipe the same quantity of knives." She repeats often that "Miss Lyon and all the teachers try to do all they can for the comfort and happiness of the girls," and she found the girls themselves surprisingly anxious to make each other happy also with "an ease and grace quite unexpected."

She wrote out for her family the following list of her day's occupations, which seems calculated to outwit Satan of idle hours to fill!

At six o'clock we all rise. We breakfast at 7. Our study hour begins at 8. At 9 we all meet at Seminary Hall for devotions. At 10.15 I recite a review of Ancient History in connection with which we read Goldsmith and Grimshaw. At 11 I recite a lesson on Pope's Essay on Man, which is merely transposition. At 12 I practise calisthenics, and at 12.15 I read until dinner which is at 12.30. After dinner from 1.30 till 2, I sing in Seminary Hall. From 2.45 till 3.45 I practise upon the piano. At 3.45 I go to Sections, where we give all our accounts for the day; including absence, tardiness, communications, breaking silence, study hours, receiving company in our rooms and ten thousand other things which I will not take time to mention.

At half-past four they all went into the Seminary Hall and received advice from Miss Lyon in lecture form. They had supper at six and retired at eight forty-five after a long silent study period. Unless their excuse for failure in any of these things was good and reasonable,