MY DEAR MISS LARCOM,--I have been reading your poems at all the spare moments I could find this evening. Many of them I read carefully--every page I tasted. My wife and daughter were sitting opposite to me, and I had to shade my eyes with my hand that they should not see the tears shining in them--this over and over again. The poems are eminently wholesome, sweet, natural. Their perfume is as characteristic of the soil they spring from as that of the sweet fern or the bayberry. It is pleasant to me to find my name in such good company as it is in your pages, and if anything I have written has ever given you pleasure this volume has amply repaid me. Very sincerely yours, O. W. HOLMES. P.S. (Worth all the rest). I got a letter from Mr. Whittier which reads as follows:-- “Has thee seen Miss Larcom’s ‘Cape Ann’? I like it, and in reading it I thought thee would also. Get it and see if she has not a right to stand with the rest of us. Wishing thee a pleasant Thanksgiving after the manner of the enclosed card, I am faithfully thy friend, J. G. WHITTIER.” CAMBRIDGE, December 24, 1880. DEAR MISS LARCOM,--I thank you very much for your beautiful volume of beautiful poems. I have been reading it this morning with great enjoyment. I always liked your poetry, and now like it more than ever. It is not merely verse, but possesses the true poetic instinct and insight. One little song among the many particularly charms me. It is “At her Bedside.” It ought to be set to music. Thanks, and all good wishes. Sincerely yours, HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. CHAPTER IX. RELIGIOUS CHANGES. 1881-1884. The true poetic temperament has in it an element of religion; for religion and poetry both deal with the spiritual interpretation of life, and one who possesses the temperament for either is conscious of the vastness overshadowing common things, and sees the infinite meaning of the apparent finiteness of the visible world. The delicate perception of truth which is a distinctive quality of the poet often leads to the deep appreciation of the spirit in and through nature, and enables one to feel and know God. Lucy Larcom possessed the poetic temperament, with this strong element of religion. She was pre-eminently religious, in the sense of possessing a spiritual power, dealing continually with spiritual things. She began early to interpret life in the light of divine truth; and truth made real in human character she considered the one thing worth striving for.