Early Years
Born in Greenock into a maritime family, her most famous work (though the authorship was for some time in dispute) is "There's Nae Luck Aboot The Hoose," a tale of a sailor's wife and the safe return of her husband from the sea. It is reported that Robert Burns remarked on its quality in 1771, some years after Adam's death.
Adam had a limited education in reading, writing, and sewing. She first encountered poetry not at school but when she read extracts from Sir Philip Sidney's romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1590) whilst working in domestic service with the minister of West Kirk, Greenock. There she also became acquainted with John Milton’s work and translations of the classics.
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Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Early education can only promise to help make the third and fourth and fifth years of life good ones. It cannot insure without fail that any tomorrow will be successful. Nothing “fixes” a child for life, no matter what happens next. But exciting, pleasing early experiences are seldom sloughed off. They go with the child, on into first grade, on into the child’s long life ahead.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)