“When we first came to this place all things were decidedly _new_. The inhabitants, men, women and children, truly seemed to us to have reflected in their own natures the marvelous greenness and freshness of the close surrounding forests; the village was poor, like all new places, and not one quarter its present size. Indeed, we call it a city now. “But you never can think what a house of refuge it was to us poor people! I was glad from my heart that there were none rich, none powerful here; that all was one grand level, above which wisdom and strength of mind, and superior goodness alone might rise. I was glad, I say, for despise it as you may, I am bold to acknowledge there was something awfully repelling to me in the thought of looking _up_ to people because they happened to be rich, or occupy by birth a high station. Even the notice taken of me in my young days, in the place where I sojourned, was galling to me. It savored too much of condescension, which, child as I was, even then I despised and hated. There were many children here even in those days; for some years mine was the only school—how well it was patronized I need not say. I prospered, and was contented. Oh, it was such a joy to look on our own comfortable home; to know what a cheerful fire and plenty of food meant in one’s own house! There is something so exhilarating in the thought of independence and reliance on one’s own exertions, that for a whole year after our removal here I altogether abandoned my pencil and my pen; I thought I would never labor with them again. But I was mistaken in myself, as many times before I had been. I knew not the wants and necessities of my own nature.