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Two great joys of Louisa’s life were books and the outdoors. She enjoyed a quiet corner with a good book. She also loved to run in the woods in the early morning before the dew was off the grass. She liked to feel the velvety moss under her feet and to look up into the green branches overhead. Once, when she was a child, she paused in her running and stood still listening to the rustle of the pines.

“It seemed as if I felt God,” she wrote in her journal, “and I prayed in my heart that I might keep that happy sense of nearness all my life.”

Louisa had a quick temper and found difficulty in managing it. At fourteen years of age she wrote a poem about her struggles entitled, “My Little Kingdom.” It began:

“A little kingdom I possess,

Where thoughts and feelings dwell.

And very hard I find the task

Of governing it well;

For passion tempts and troubles me,

A wayward will misleads,

And selfishness its shadow casts

On all my words and deeds.”

She kept on trying, however, and never let her little kingdom control her.