I may be able, in some measure, to repay your good opinion of me by deserving it. To the same friend, at another time, she says: I do want your candid opinion upon my articles. Though I do not pretend to be less sensitive than others to praise and blame, I am not so weak, I trust, as to receive with any illfeeling any criticism, however harsh, upon my articles. I think your remarks upon my poor story, last year, did me much good, though, I confess, my vanity was slightly wounded at first; but I am sure you will deal frankly and justly with me, and I shall place more confidence in what you say of the poems than in any or all other notices. Allow me to say here, and, trust me, it is from no overweening love of approbation, or any sentiment of mock-modesty, that I do so, - that I fear you have over-rated my abilities and powers of mind. Still, I am truly grateful for your good opinion, and I will try, as far as I may, to deserve it. From Charlotte's writings and correspondence in 1843, we draw abundant evidence of a great growth of mind, a breadth of comprehensiveness that gave her access to a larger field of thought. She became acquainted with several artists whose excellence is now acknowledged, and, aided by their conversations about Art, and their criticisms on paintings and sculpture, she became much interested in visiting the studios of artists and galleries of paintings. She knew there was a wealth that, though it could not obtain possession of the admired work of art, could, nevertheless, have a copy, the wealth of the imagination; and by its potency she bore away the finest conceptions of genius, and in the "chamber of imagery" they were hers. She could not help expressing to her friends the pleasure thus obtained from brief moments caught now and then from her toil; and in her letters she describes graphically picture after picture. Once she took a whole day for this picture-hunting, and enjoyed it as much as the many who give up home and spend their wealth in searching for "lovely spots" in the fashionable route of travel. How she had been confined to the city is seen from her letter to S. C. E., in March of this year: I am actually longing for the sight and smell of violets. It is full three years since I have seen one, and when they are in bloom, do send me a cluster in the turf, so that they will not wither before I can get them. Will you do this? Ere the violets bloomed, her wish for wild-flowers was answered, as she writes to another friend: Yesterday, mine eyes were gladdened with a note from dear S- accompanied by a tin box, filled with- what do you guess? flowers! wild anemones· the firstlings of the season - from Bow Brook; and a beautiful rose-bud! It is long since I have seen any wild-flowers before, and I tried to be sentimental; but I am not given that way. Flowers do indeed have a language, when they are thus used; and Charlotte made a return for them by sending to her friend a description of the flowers of Art. She writes: I wish you had been with me last Wednesday. I spent the whole day in visiting artists' studios. I saw some very beautiful landscapes, painted from nature, by Hollingsworth, - the finest, I think, that I have ever seen. If I could paint such scenes as those, I am sure I could never bring myself to copying such uninteresting faces as he had in his study. There was one, however, that I liked,—a picture of an old woman knitting, or rather taking up a stitch which she had dropped; her mouth was pursed up, and there was a sturdy, determined expression on the face, which could belong to none but an English peasant. In Hewins' room were some fine old paintings; one in particular pleased me very much. It is by one of the old masters,-I have forgotten his name,-and represented two scenes; or, rather, there was a division in the picture, like two rooms. In one part was represented the chamber at Emmaus, where Christ's supped with the two or three disciples whom he met and conversed with as they were walking thither, after his resurrection; while, in the lower apartment, various domestic offices were performed. Two or three female figures were employed in the kitchen; some in preparing vegetables to boil,—the pot hanging over the fire for that purpose, · - another was cleaning a large brass kettle, and still another was washing dishes. There was a deepness and richness of coloring, which we rarely see in modern pictures. But my space grows small, and I have not yet told you of the most delightful visit of all. I spent two hours in T. B. Read's room, and fell in love with one of his pictures. It is an embodiment of Coleridge's beautiful ideal, "Genevieve." I wish you could see it, Sarah, for it is the most beautiful creation of genius I ever beheld. Longfellow, the poet, says it is exactly his conception of Genevieve; and I think it must have been something like Coleridge's, if he could have had so beautiful an image in his mind. I have written a short poetical description of it, which will appear in the Repository at some time, I suppose. It may give you some idea of the picture, though any description must fail of presenting all its beauties. Read has a style of dressing his ladies which I like; that is, the drapery is modest. Genevieve is dressed in a green velvet bodice, laced up the front, and displaying only the white throat, no exposure of shoulders and bust, which renders French and English portraits so disgusting; the rich golden-hazel hair falls over her shoulders luxuriantly, and a thin veil is fastened round the back of her head. There is another large portrait in his room, a perfect contrast to Genevieve. It is Heloise, taken at that moment in the poem when she receives Abelard's letter, and soliloquizes in her cell: "What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?" The large dark eyes look outward into the world beyond her cell, and there is passion in every feature; while Genevieve's blue eyes are downcast, and there is a sad expression on the face. You remember the verse, "Few sorrows hath she of her own, My life, my love, my Genevieve; The songs that make her grieve." To another friend she thus describes a piece of sculpture. After alluding to a painting of the same subject, she writes: Brackett has a fine thing. It is a basso-relievo, and embodies the whole of Longfellow's poem, Excelsior, though the part peculiarly chosen is the last verse: "There, in the morning, cold and gray, Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay; Still grasping in his hand of ice The banner, with the strange device: 'EXCELSIOR !'" The principal figure in the foreground is the youth, lying cold and dead, the face upturned with an intellectual, lofty expression. The banner is grasped in his hand, In the background stand the monk, stern and stoical; the Alpine peasant wondering; the maiden, with looks of despairing love, and the faithful hound. It is one of the most exquisite things I ever met with. As delightfully she dwells on her reading, and the lectures she attended. Every agency was used for culture; and she deepened their power by communicating their influence to her distant friends in her descriptive letters. She labored to draw into sympathy with her tastes her friends, and she thus writes: Do you love poetry? and what poets do you most admire? I have a fancy that you like the same authors I do. Do you like Byron, with his wild, stormy grandeur, and his brooding melancholy; Scott, with his graphic descriptions, and his Border Ballads; Wordsworth, with his natural simplicity; Mrs. Hemans, with her graceful imaginativeness; L. E. L., with her pathetic stories of blighted love and broken hearts; all, or any of these, do you like? Speaking of a person with whom she had been conversing, she writes to the same friend: "The heathen! he don't like Byron! What can the man be thinking of?" "Hyperion" seemed to be a sort of pillow-book to her; its music soothed the distracted mind, perplexed with the changes, toils and cares of the day, and it made the heart tender to accept with the morning all the offices of duty and love. At the intermission between the services of a Sabbath in the country, she read "Sermons of Consolation," by Dr. Greenwood, "a work," she writes, "replete with beauty and holy love. I was very much impressed with one sermon in particular; the subject was, 'Christ our Fellow-Sufferer.' Mr. Greenwood, though classed with our Unitarian brethren, was one of us, in spirit and in words. To my mind there is a deal |