Quotes by Amelia E. Barr

I was a little nervous about my entry into the Normal School, but when Monday morning came, I was ready for what it demanded, and more curious than frightened. It was a foggy morning, and the big building amid the small, poor buildings around it, loomed up gray and forbidding in its bare black yard, where a lot of children were trying to be playful, in the most discouraging surroundings. The janitor took me to the recitation hall, opened the door, and left me. There were groups of men and groups of women standing about, talking in an unconstrained way; others sat alone on the benches of the great gallery, which rose, bench above bench, nearly to the ceiling. No one spoke to me, and I sat down and looked curiously at the women, who could be guilty of such unkindness. I am sure many of them wished to speak, but did not know how to take the initiative. If they would only have trusted their hearts, and said a word of welcome, they need not have feared they were breaking any social law. Kindness is always fashionable, and always welcome. In a few minutes an exceedingly tall, fair, thin man slowly entered, and every one went instantly to their places. I presented to him Dr. Farrar's letter of introduction, and he threw it on a small table, and said irritably, "Third row, left corner." Somehow I walked straight to the place indicated. I am not going to describe this school, or the method of teaching used there. I have but an imperfect remembrance of all concerning it, and the system is likely superseded long ago by something better. Yet, I was much interested in the hall recitations and exercises; and the teaching of men and women together, on the basis of perfect mental equality, was then a great novelty, and far from being universally approved. My own impression was that in every department the women excelled the male students. Certainly Professor Hyslop appeared to think so, and to please himself hugely and frequently, by illustrations of the fact. During my first hour in that room, I saw him call a young man to the blackboard, and give him an algebraic problem to solve.

Birds weave their nests, the lion finds a lair, Man builds his halls, "These are but coverts from earth's war and storm; Homes where our lesser lives take shape and breath. _But if no heavenly man has grown, what form Clothes thee at death?_ "And when thy meed of penalty is o'er And fire has burned the dross where gold is none, Shall separate life but wasted heretofore, Still linger on? "God fills all space--whatever doth offend From His unbounded Presence shall be spurned; Or deem'st thou, He should garner tares, whose end Is to be burned. "If thou wouldst see the Power that round thee sways, In whom all motion, thought, and life are cast, Know that the pure who travel heavenward ways, See God at last." Further I press upon the young, not to be ashamed of their disposition to be sentimental or religious. It is the sentimental young men who conquer; it is the men steeped in religious thought and aspiration, who _do_ things. Whatever the scientists may say, if we take the supernatural out of life, we leave only the unnatural. But science is the magical word of the day, and scientists too often profess to doubt, whether we have a soul for one life, not to speak of a multitude of lives. "There is no proof!" they cry. "No proof! No proof of the soul's existence." Neither is there any proof of the existence of the mind. But the mind bores tunnels, and builds bridges and conceived aviation. And the soul can re-create a creature of clay, and of the most animal instincts, until he reaches the colossal manhood of a Son of God. Religion is life, not science. It is now the twenty-seventh of October, 1912, and a calm, lovely Sabbath. I have been quite alone for three weeks, and have finished this record in unbroken solitude and peace. Mary is in Florida, and Alice is in New York with her sister Lilly. Sitting still in the long autumn evenings, I have drawn the past from the eternity into which it had fallen, to look at it again, and to talk to myself very intimately about it; and I confess, that though it is the nature of the soul to adore what it has lost, that I prefer what I possess.

I was nearly thirty-nine years old when I became a student at the Astor and began a life so different from the lives I had lived in Glasgow, Chicago, Austin and Galveston, that I might have been born again for it. Virtually, I was reborn. In that great and terrible alembic of pestilence and death through which I was passed in Galveston, all the small delights and frivolities of my life vanished; and I came out of its fires, holding firmly to one adequate virtue in their place--henceforward to be through all the days of my life, an all competent motive, and an all sufficient reward--the homely virtue of duty. And I have never regretted this exchange though at first I found, as all the servants of duty must do, "That they who follow her commands, Must on with heart, and knees, and hands, Through the long gorge, the upper light to win. But still the path is upward, and once The toppling crags of Duty scaled, the soul Stands clear upon the shining table lands, To which our God himself is moon and star." For moral and spiritual gifts are bought, and not given. We pay for them in some manner, or we go empty away. It is _every day duty_ that tells on life. Spiritual favors are not always to be looked for, and not always to be relied on. After the glory of Mt. Tabor, the disciples were not willing to go to Calvary with Christ. They forsook him and fled. In my little home of three rooms, things were not uncomfortable; we made the best of what we had, and we found out how few are the real necessities of life, and how much we could do without, and yet be happy enough. For if the heart is young, nothing is too hard; and when these meagre days were over, we often talked of the good time we had had in them. For if love be of your company, I declare poverty to be an exquisite experience. We found out then the heart of love, and of many other things; she taught us economy and self-denial, for we would all have wanted rather than have let Alice miss any of her small desires. She did her best to give us some knowledge of life, but with myself she did not succeed very well. I was so hopeful, that I would not foresee evil, and as yet I fully trusted humanity. Moreover, I had so often been wonderfully helped in great anxieties, that I could not believe the time would ever come when the hard eye of misfortune ".

I told him that I felt inclined to write poetry, and would doubtless go to sleep about the sixth line, "so go, and talk, and enjoy yourself, Robert, dear," I added. "I am glad you have such good company." "Better company there could not be, Milly," and, with these words, he kissed me, and ran lightly down stairs. Did I write any more poetry? No, I went to sleep. But I have not yet forgotten two lines of the poem to Mother England I began that night, and have never yet finished, My heart is like a weaning child, That never can be weaned: I did not dream at that date of a time when Robert Bonner would pay me ten dollars every week for a poem, and that for a period of nearly fifteen years. When that time arrived, I had outgrown the longing and the need--I had been adopted by New York. CHAPTER XIII IN ARCADIA "'Tis not for nothing that we Life pursue. It pays our hopes with something still that's new; Each day's a gift we ne'er enjoyed before, Like travelers, we're pleased with seeing more." There are no little events in life, those we think of no consequence may be full of fate, and it is at our own risk if we neglect the acquaintances and opportunities that seem to be casually offered, and of small importance. And, as for what we call "accidents," they are God's part in every occurrence so called. I am led to this reflection by a circumstance that happened just at this time. When the coach which brought us to Austin was on the point of leaving Bastrop, a man rode rapidly up to it, and, flinging his bridle to a bystander, made a leap to the outside seats, and landed close to Robert. Robert smilingly made room for him, saying as he did so, "That was a clever jump. It is a jump you mustn't make a miss of--if you try it." This introduction preceded a day of pleasant conversation together, and, when the coach stopped at Smith's Hotel, the Honorable William Bentley stopped there, and at the dinner table we found him again at Robert's side. The big cigar Robert was smoking when he came to tell me he was going to sit and talk an hour or two, was made from tobacco grown on the Bentley plantation; and, in the course of that evening's conversation, he told Robert he was the member for his county, and had come to Austin to take his seat in the legislative hall.

I prize it very highly. I would not part with it for anything. This March twenty-ninth was my eightieth birthday, and I had one hundred and thirty letters and cards full of good wishes, from men and women whom I have never seen, and who were scattered in many states and far distant places. I finished the Stuyvesant novel on August, the first, 1911, and on September, the eighth, 1911, I began to write this story of my life, which is now drawing rapidly to its conclusion on October twenty-eighth, A.D. 1912. It has been a grand lesson to me. I have recalled all God's goodness, remembered all His mercies, lived over again the years in which I have seen so much sorrow and labor, and I say gratefully, yes, joyfully, they were all good days, for always God has been what He promised me--"_Sufficient!_" CHAPTER XXVI THE VERDICT OF LIFE "Lord, mend, or make us--one creation Will not suffice our turn; Except Thou make us daily, we shall spurn Our own salvation." Old age is the verdict of life. I am now an old woman. Many people tell me so, and there is the indisputable evidence of my eighty-second birthday, the twenty-ninth of next March. But truly I am unconscious of being old. My life here is so simple, that I have never as yet met either business or social demands I was not able to fulfil without any sense of effort. My day's work is as long as it was twenty years ago, and I have quite as much pleasure in it now, as I had then. I have rarely a headache now. I was rarely without one then. I enjoy my food, especially my breakfast, and the eminent physician Brudenel of London told me that an enjoyment of breakfast was an excellent sign of general well being. I sleep seven hours every night, neither more nor less, except under some unusual circumstances; but I never fail to be ten hours in the restful and recuperative freedom of the night's silence and darkness. I have made my living for forty-two years in a stooping posture, but I am yet perfectly erect, and I ascend the stairs as rapidly as I ever did.