Harriet loved her friends absorbingly. There mingled with her friendly feelings nothing of the personal vanity that spoils so many friendships. But by reason of the very superiority of her mind, most of those she saw passed her by without moving her deeply. When they were present, she enjoyed them; when they were gone, she forgot them. But with those she really loved, it was different. From them a separation meant much. In time she learned to take refuge in the thought that there is a heaven, a world of love; as she once said, “Love is, after all, the life-blood of existence, the all in all of mind.” This thought, coming to her early in life, was a great comfort to her through many years. As the school increased in size, more teachers were added to the faculty, and among these Harriet found valuable companionship. The enlarging effect of such association cannot be overestimated. To compel one’s self to stand the comparison with people of like capacity and like advantages is in the highest degree stimulating. Harriet found it so. One of her fellow teachers, a young woman of fine mind and of unconquerable energy of character, became specially inspiring to her. From early childhood this teacher had been determined to obtain a higher education than was usual among the young women of that time. We must remember that this was before the day of colleges for girls, and that to have such an ambition was rare and to pursue it with grim resoluteness was rarer. It was the more inspiring when this ambition was realized only after a mighty struggle against difficulties. Harriet, looking upon this example of resolute endeavor, coolly observed, “Where persons are determined to be anything, they will be!” When Harriet arrived at her sister’s school her two friends, Catherine Cogswell and Georgiana May, were already reading Virgil. She therefore--now twelve years old--began the study of Latin alone, but before the first year was over she was translating Ovid into English verse. The result of her work was considered so creditable that it was read at the final exhibition of the school. Soon she herself was carrying classes of young ladies through Virgil’s Æneid and Bucolics, the best parts of Ovid, and Cicero’s Orations. She also began the study of both French and Italian with a good teacher.