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out as so many treasures are lost by unthinking or uncaring descendants. Or maybe she put them in a box somewhere and buried them at one of her secret haunts. One thing is certain: She never threw away anything because everything to her had life, even pencil stubs. I am hoping that some of them were carried with Jane when she moved from the Hermitage to North Carolina. Perhaps they lay in an attic somewhere or in an antique shop.
Lying about her age and other aspects of her life shows that she had some vanity. I believe its source came from when she lived in Gainsville and her brothers told her she was ugly and no man would ever love her or want to marry her. She prayed every night for God to make her beautiful and in the morning ran to the mirror to see if God answered her prayers overnight. Her vanity was the sort that tendered the preoccupation with always trying to look her best, rather than the sort of believing one?s self beautiful. In later life, she even missed an audience with Queen Victoria because she felt she wouldn?t look good in the presentation gown. This vanity, however, was not strong enough to curtail her wild and kind nature. In a poem written on one of her first visits to New Orleans, she writes about braving the city?s bustle to give a tired man the berries she picked in spite of her tom clothing and unkempt hair. She writes:
With my fingers stained and purple,
Torn dress, and rumpled hair,
I would have braved proud fashion?s eye To place my berries there.
Not much is known about Eliza?s aunt Jane. I expect that she was strict but forgiving; frustrated at this wild child of nature who often returned home disheveled. Again in her poem Myself she writes:
No other child grew on the place,
A merry roughish elf,
I played ?keep house? in shady nooks All by my little self.
I leaped the brook,
I climbed the bars,
I rode upon the hay;
To swing upon the old barn gate To me was merry play.
I waded in the shallow stream To break the lilies sweet,
And laughed to see the minnows swim,
So near my rosy feet.
I rode the pony down to drink,
He played some pranks with me,
But I had learned to hold on tight