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

anne C. X. motta
to keep up, and doing all that man can do under the
circumstances. While I preach courage, occupation,
and all that, perhaps you will scarcely believe that I
have, ever since I grew up, been subject to attacks of
depression that, while they lasted, made life almost
unendurable. A sudden realization of the emptiness,
shortness, nothingness of life comes over me; such,
as I am persuaded, it is not in the plan of creation that
human beings should have. And then I need preaching to, and praying for, badly. As people are said to
whistle sometimes to keep their courage up, so, perhaps, they sometimes preach.
A. C. L. B.
December 3 i, i 888.
.. While in Rome we were taken to the studio
of Monteverde, where we saw a most beautiful monument: a recumbent figure with an angel bending
over it. I have never seen anything of the kind to
compare with it. I would have liked very much to
have a photograph of it; but I learned that some
American, who liked the work very much and pretended that he would order a copy of it, obtained a
photograph from the artist, sent it to Carrara and
had it copied; so I did not like to ask for one, lest I
should be ranked with my thrifty countryman. What
sad news about the Crown Prince! You who know
him so well must feel it deeply, when even strangers
who never saw him find the case so pathetic.
A. C. L. B.
294