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

21nne C. Z. 36otta
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, August, 1857.
Dearest Anne: Months have gone by since I received your dear
letter, which found me in one of the remote valleys of Switzerland, where I was restoring myself after great fatigues and later
illness. In your letter I saw you, all yourself, my own dear amiable Anne, sweet and serious and kind, and I blessed you in my
heart for it. I like to think you are married with an Italian. The
Italian character has a peculiar charm to me; there is in it a simplicity and a grace with a chivalrous feeling for women which
delights me. I think an Italian must love you dearly, and in a
peculiar way as a woman and a poetic soul, as you are; and it
is sweet to be loved well.
Now, you will want to know something of the friend to whom
you once were a kind hostess and friend. Dear Anne, she is
well, and thanks God for her existence. She has had severe trials,
dreary times to pass; but they are passed, and the fountains of
hope and love spring still,- perhaps are more strong than ever.
Love! did I say? yea, but not more of earthly friends. All those
I have dearly loved are gone,-gone to the unknown land. My
love on earth has become more like adoration, and I need not tell
you for whom. I like to read his name, to study his meaning wherever I go; and in every page of nature and history of present life
that I do study, I hope to see his light, and love more and more
clearly, and to make others see it. This makes life dear to me.
If I can carry out what I have planned for this purpose, many
souls will be befriended and strengthened; and, my love, my constant, only true love will make my faults and errors pardoned by
God and those who have any right to pardon me.
O Anne! This is my prayer and my hope! And this is a
confession to you whose pure mind I know. As to my earthly
plans and movements, they are now to go to Italy. The coming
winter I intend to pass in Rome. Perhaps I may go to Greece
and to Jerusalem. But this will depend on several circumstances.
In two years after this present one I wish to be back in my own
land, which I shall probably no more leave until my very last
voyage on earth. God permitting, I will have plenty to do until
that moment. May I not hope that when I am once more in my
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