It was a pleasure to her to be once more with her family, for the members of which she had the deepest affection. Writing to Miss Fobes, she expressed herself thus: “I am glad I came home, for I never realized before what a treasure my family circle was, nor how much I loved them. Then why do I not wish to stay? Simply because it does not seem to me that I can here develop the utmost that is in me. Ought I to be contented while that feeling remains?”
The feeling that she must develop “the utmost that is in me,” impelled her through life, as a duty that she must regard. She was not without opportunities for cultivation in Beverly. There were the two weekly Lyceum lectures, with good speakers--Miss Lucy Stone had advocated woman’s rights so ably that “even in this conservative town many became converts.” However, she longed for a larger work, and was ready to accept the call to be a teacher in Wheaton Seminary, Norton, Massachusetts.
In the early winter of 1854, she began her work at Wheaton Seminary, the large school for girls, founded through the generosity of Judge Wheaton, in memory of his daughter. The subjects given her to teach were history, moral philosophy, literature, and rhetoric, including the duty of overlooking the greater part of the compositions.
Her spirit on entering upon this new work, is indicated by this letter:--
WHEATON SEMINARY, NORTON, MASS., January 10, 1855.
DEAR MISS FOBES:--When I look back upon my life I think I see it divided into epochs similar to geological ages, when, by slow or sudden upheavings, I have found myself the wondering possessor of a new life in a new world. My years at Monticello formed such an epoch, and it is no flattery to say that to you I owe much of the richness and beauty of the landscape over which I now exult. For your teaching gave me intellectually a broader scope and firmer footing than I ever had ventured upon.
I know that I have done almost nothing as yet to show that I have received so much good. Life here seems to me not much more than “a getting ready to do.” But in the consciousness of what it is to be a human being, created in the image of the divine,--in the gradual developing of new inner powers like unfolding wings,--in the joy of entering into the secrets of beauty in God’s universe,--in the hopefulness of constant struggling and aspiring, I am rich.