What are the motifs in Life in the Iron Mills, and Other Stories by Rebecca Harding Davis?

Lost opportunities is a recurring idea in the story. In "Anne," Mrs. Palmer has a dream in which she is seventeen again and in love with a neighbor named George. When she wakes and realizes that thirty years have passed, Mrs. Palmer is saddened by the choices she made and everything she gave up. Although Mrs. Palmer loves her husband and children, she has always wanted to be a part of something bigger, of an intellectual group of people. The man Mrs. Palmer once loved became a poet, a great man full of amazing insights that never fail to amaze Mrs. Palmer. Mrs. Palmer finds herself wondering how different her life might have been if he had been her husband.