LAST VERSES
LAST VERSES
Last Verses
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Copyright, 1906,
By Little, Brown, and Company.
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All rights reserved
Published October, 1906
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
SUSAN COOLIDGE
SARAH CHAUNCEY WOOLSEY (Susan Coolidge)was born in Cleveland, Ohio, January 29, 1835.Her father, John M. Woolsey, a New Yorker, had cometo Cleveland to attend to property owned by his father,and had there met Jane Andrews, a charming and gracefulgirl from Connecticut, whom he made his wife.
Their home was on Euclid Avenue, and comprisedabout five acres in house-lot, garden, orchard, pasture,and woodland. Here came into the world a family offour girls and a boy,—all vigorous and active and fullof life. Sarah was the eldest and the predestined leaderof the little tribe. They grew up as children of that daydid under similar conditions. There was the regularold-fashioned schooling, not too exacting or strenuous,and much wholesome out-of-door life. There werehorses and dogs and cattle and birds for the children tocare for and play with, and much climbing and romping[vi]were permitted in a place where no near neighbors couldbe disturbed. To the other children life was a joyousholiday, diversified with small disappointments and dismays;but to Sarah the sky and the earth held boundlessanticipations and intentions, and the world was a placeof enchantment.
She was always individual from the moment she firstopened her big brown eyes—passionately loving andpassionately wilful, with heroic intentions and desires,and with remorse and disappointments in proportion.Part of the woodland where the axe had not yet done itswork of cutting and clipping was given to the childrenfor a playground. They called it “Paradise,” and for allof them it was a place of rapture and mystery. To theothers it was full of hiding places,—to little Sarah thehiding places were bowers. They looked for eggs andbirds’ nests, and had thrilling encounters with furry wildcreatures, which fled at their approach; but her intercoursewas all with the fairies and elves and gnomeswhich peopled the place. After a time they felt thepresence of the fairies too; but it was under the influenceof her enthusiastic imagination, which controlled[vii]their own more mundane perceptions. With her for a
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