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[1295] meat which my soul loveth, even as much as my Italians. What I demand of men,—that they could act out all their thoughts,—these have. They are lives; —and of such I do not care if they had as many faults as there are days in the year,—there is the energy to redeem them. Do you not admire Lord Herbert's two poems on life, and the conjectures concerning celestial life? I keep reading them.

When I look at my papers, I feel as if I had never had a thought that was worthy the attention of any but myself; and 't is only when, on talking with people, I find I tell them what they did not know, that my confidence at all returns.

My verses,—I am ashamed when I think there is scarce a line of poetry in them,—all rhetorical and impassioned, as Goethe said of De Stael. However, such as they are, they have been overflowing drops from the somewhat bitter cup of my existence.

How can I ever write with this impatience of detail? I shall never be an artist; I have no patient love of execution; I am delighted with my sketch, but if I try to finish it, I am chilled. Never was there a great sculptor who did not love to chip the marble.

I have talent and knowledge enough to furnish a —dwelling for friendship, but not enough to deck with golden gifts a Delphi for the world.

Then a woman of tact and brilliancy, like me, has an undue advantage in conversation with men. They are

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