It was while spending a short time at Tavistock, in 1830, that the beauty of the surrounding scenery led her to express her thoughts in verse. Several small pieces soon followed her first essay, and she became extremely fond of this new exercise and enjoyment of her opening powers, yet her mind was so well regulated that she never permitted herself to indulge in original composition until her duties and her studies were all performed. Grace Aguilar was extremely fond of music; she had learned the piano from infancy, and in 1831 commenced the harp. She sang pleasingly, preferring English songs, and invariably selecting them for the beauty or sentiment of the words; she was also passionately fond of dancing, and her cheerful, lively manners in the society of her young friends would scarcely have led any to imagine how deeply she felt and pondered upon the serious and solemn subjects which afterward formed the labor of her life. She seemed to enjoy all, to enter into all, but a keen observer would detect the hold that sacred and holy principle ever exercised over her lightest act and gayest hour. A sense of duty was apparent in the merest trifle, and her following out of the divine command of obedience to parents was only equaled by the unbounded affection she felt for them. A wish was once expressed by her mother that she should not waltz, and no solicitation could afterward tempt her. Her mother also required her to read sermons, and study religion and the Bible regularly; this was readily submitted to, first as a task, but afterward with much delight; for evidence of which we can not do better than quote her own words, in one of her religious works: "This formed into a habit, and persevered in for a life, would in time, and without labor or weariness, give the comfort and the knowledge that we seek; each year it would become lighter and more blessed; each year we should discover something we knew not before, and, in the valley of the shadow of death, feel to our heart's core that the Lord our God is Truth."--_Women of Israel_, vol. ii., p. 43.