Memoirs of Anne C.L. Botta,: written by her friends. With selections from her correspondence and from her writings in prose and poetry.

:nne C. Z. cotta
have all that I see others have, call it by what name
you will.
Love! to that pale uncertain flame
The fervent God denies his name,
says Mrs. Norton. Nothing great was ever achieved
without passion. Appetite is a quality of the senses,
but passion belongs to the soul, and is the source of
all enthusiasm and of whatever lifts us above the
level of that mediocrity where the mass of men are
destined to live.
Love, which would be to me the sun of my existence, has not dawned on me, and I dwell in the
dreariness of a polar night. Do not think this a figure; it is literally true. The bloom and perfume of
my existence has never been called forth, and I feel
that I shall die without having lived. But do not think
that I complain. "To bear is to conquer our fate."
I have struggled bravely with mine; I have borne
and conquered. Those who live in the polar regions
build themselves huts, kindle their fires, and light
their torches-ineffectual substitutes for the sun.
One single ray shines on my polar night; this is
the love of what is beautiful in sentiment, in action,
or in outward form or manifestation. The passion
of my soul that should have been given to love beams
on the altar of the beautiful. The light that it gives
me, it is true, is cold as the beams of the Aurora
Borealis; but it is constant and increasing, and if
I could forget the sun, it would be more sufficing.
Without any vulgar ambition for distinction, I have
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