MY DEAR SUSIE,--I find it almost impossible to feel at home in a boarding-school; and then I know I never was made for a teacher,--a schoolmistress I mean. Still, among so many, one feels an inspiration in trying to do what is to be done, though the feeling that others would do it better is a drawback. And then, at such a place, I always find somebody to remember forever. For that I am thankful for my winter’s experience. There are buds opening in the great human garden, which are not to be found at our own hearthstone: and it is a blessed task to watch them unfolding, and shield them from blight. And yet what can one mortal do for another? There is no such thing as helping, or blessing, except by becoming a medium for the divine light, and that is blessedness in itself. It seems to me that to be a Christian is just to look up to God, and be blessed by his love, and then move through the world quietly, radiating as we go.... The development of her own religious life was marked by many radical changes. She was no longer satisfied by the theology in which she had been reared. She sought new foundations for her belief. Her classes in philosophy led her into the world of controversy. Plato was constantly by her side, and she refreshed herself by reading Coleridge’s “Aids to Reflection,” from which she gained more nutriment than from any other religious book, except the Bible. Swedenborg taught her that “to grow old in heaven is to grow young.” Sears’s “Foregleams and Foreshadows” made her feel the joy of living, as presented in the chapter on “Home.” She also read “Tauler’s Sermons,” and Hare’s “Mission of the Comforter.” Interwoven with her religious thought were the life and influence of one of the dearest friends she ever knew, Miss Esther S. Humiston of Waterbury, Connecticut, a woman of rare powers, and wonderful sweetness of character. The two women were not unlike. They had the same spiritual longings, similar views of life, and equal intellectual attainments. Miss Larcom looked up to Esther for guidance, and such was the perfect accord between them, that she wrote to her fully about her deepest thoughts, and most sacred experiences.