I love to steal awhile away

I love to steal awhile away. Phoebe Hinsdale Brown* (1783-1861). Written in August 1818 when Brown and her husband were living at Ellington, Connecticut. Its history is related at length by Samuel Willoughby Duffield (1885, pp. 242-6), drawing on an autobiographical account transcribed by the author’s son, Dr Samuel Robbins Brown, a missionary to the Sandwich Islands, and printed in The Friend (Honolulu, April 1879). It recounts that she was in the habit of frequenting a quiet outdoor place where she could meditate and pray, which led to misunderstandings and ‘remark and censure’ from her neighbours. Brown was upset by the questioning of one particular neighbour, ‘who I had ever felt was my...