Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good.

Larcom compares a human life to a plant that thrives through a mixture of rain and sun. The metaphor resists a simple moral accounting in which suffering is either purely damaging or purely ennobling, and likewise refuses to treat pleasant experience as merely superficial. Instead, she emphasizes the complexity of growth: difficulty can deepen resilience and insight, while joy and ease can nourish hope, confidence, and openness. The line’s quiet wisdom lies in its balance—gratitude without sentimentality, and realism without bitterness—suggesting that a full life is shaped by the interplay of trial and blessing rather than by one kind of experience alone.