The Writings of Laura Bridgman, Part I [pp. 355-373]

1886.] The WVritiizgs of Lauira Bridf,-lna. 357
man's attainments are phenomenal, but in it is only toward the very last that her entries
her studying she has had as her ally a burn- come to have anything like maturity, and the
ing desire to learn. It has been said that in interest of a personal diary. In these last
all her learning she probably never exceeded books she records, besides the mere events of
the tendency to spontaneous activity. the day, an occasional bit of pleasantry, a play
The detail of her education was executed of fancy, her hopes and doubts of the future,
by the faithful women that were her teachers, and sqme evidence of her religious feeling.
but to Dr. Howe belongs the credit of hay- The manuscripts show the growth of her chiing devised the way, and, not only by super- rography from a sprawling and scarcely legivision, but by actual work with her, of hav- ble hand, to one of almost the clearness of
ing helped her to what she is. It was his print, a gradual increase in use of capital
express desire that her religious instruc- letters and punctuation, and an increasing
tion should be left to himself, and his plans mastery of language. On the whole, the jourwere for such instruction as should lead one nal cannot be said to contain much of interest
of her restricted experience by natural steps to the general reader. In this respect the autoto a symmetrical Christian faith; but in this biographies are better. They deal exclusively
his wishes were not respected, and while with the interesting early portion of her life,
nominally her sole religious instructor till for the most part with that before she came to
she had been some time under Miss Wight's Boston; and though they offer no new historcharge, he was not allowed to be so in ical matter of any consequence, they have
fact. the peculiar interest of autobiography in a
marked degree. In a most naive way they
The writings of Laura Bridgman are a open to the reader her early home life, and
journal, three autobiographical sketches, sev- throw light by their style of thought upon the
eral so called poems, and numerous letters. peculiarities of her maturer mind. Mrs.
The journal, with some intervals, covers a Lamson quotes at some length from one of
period of about ten years, i841 to i850. It these sketches, but in the preparation of her
consists of some forty or more thin manu- book she did not have the best and fullest
script books, of different shapes and sizes; of the three, the better part of which appears
some of the earlier being large folios, I4 x below.
io0/ inches; the later, except the very last, In making the following abbreviation of it,
uniformly smaller, I2~ x 9. The total num- the aim has been to omit only repetitions
ber of pages, large and small, falls a little and passages of little biographical and psyshort of six hundred, and the whole, if set chological moment, and to present the reup in the type of the body of the OVERLAND, mainder as it stands in the manuscript, exwould cover about one hundred and ninety cept in the following particulars: Laura's