"My life is not the beautiful life you think, but it is my soul's steadfast purpose to make it all that you believe it already is. Nothing is of any real consequence save to live up to your very highest ideal. In criticism I made up my mind, long ago, that one should be like Swedenborg's angels, who sought to find the good in everything. Of course, really poor things must be condemned—or what I think is better—boycotted; but I do not like what is harsh, prejudiced, one-sided. I would see my possible soul's brother in every man—which all means that I am an optimist."
"Can you tell me what Henry James means by his story, 'The Private Life'? Is it an allegory or what? I never saw anything so impossible to understand."
"You speak of the 'close and near friendships' you have made in your few weeks in Florence,—'friendships for a lifetime.' That is delightful, only I can't make friendships with new people easily; so if I went I should not have that pleasure."
"... Before I rose this morning, a special messenger came from the Secretary of the Women Writers' Club (which is giving a magnificent dinner to-night at which Mrs. Humphry Ward presides). Miss Blackburne, the 'Hon. Secretary,' had only heard of my being in London this morning, so she at once sent a messenger to invite me. She entreated me to come; said she wanted me to sit at the head of one of the tables, and preside over that table, etc., etc. She sent a most distinguished list of guests, and oh, I did want to go—but I felt so ill I dared not try to go, and I sent an immediate refusal. Many of the authors whom I would like to meet will be among the guests...."
"Here is the little screed ... about Mrs. Browning. The description was given me by an English lady who saw Mrs. Browning very often during Mrs. B.'s last visit to Rome. To her such rumors as (falsely, I am persuaded) have connected Mr. Browning's name with that of another marriage would have seemed an impossible impertinence. Indeed, when one knows—as I happen to know—that Mr. Browning was asked to furnish some letters and some data about Mrs. Browning's life for Miss Zimmern (who had been requested to write about her for the Famous Women Series of Biographies) and refused because he could not bring himself to speak in detail of the past which had been so dear, or to share the sacred letters of his wife with the public, it hardly seems that he can be contemplating the offer of the place she, his 'moon of poets,' held in his life, to another."
In the "little screed" alluded to was this description of Mrs. Browning, given in the words of the friend:
"No, she was not what people call beautiful; but she was more and better. I can see her now, as she lay there on her sofa. I never saw her sitting up. She was always in white. She wore white dresses, trimmed with white lace, with white, fleecy shawls wrapped round her, and her dark brown hair used to be let down and fall all about her like a veil. Her face used to seem to me something already not of the earth—it was so pale, so pure, and with great dark eyes that gleamed like stars. Then her voice was so sweet you never wanted her to stop speaking, but it was also so low you could only hear it by listening carefully."
"'Was Mr. Browning there?'
"Oh, yes, and he used to watch her as one watches who has the most precious object in the whole world to keep guard over. He looked out for her comfort as tenderly as a woman.