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

Selections from 1bet Writint
21st. "The moon is beaming silver bright," the stars are
looking down with a melancholy gaze; I have looked on them
a moment since; they are the very same that inspired the fantasies of Plato and Pythagoras. There they shine with their
pale, sad light, and Plato and Pythagoras are gone, and generations have vanished like the waves that have broken on the
sea-shore. Myriads of eyes have looked on them, myriads of
beings like myself have "lived, loved, and died," yet they are
not changed. I look upon them to-night —-a few more years
and I shall see them not, but still they will shine on. What
is humanity amidst such a universe, and what am I? The
very trees under my window have lived longer than I can live,
-my life, the very breath of heaven can destroy it. Races
and generations are nothing; the mighty machine rolls on and
sweeps them away. Father of light and life I thou alone knowest the conflicting thoughts that agitate my soul; give me a
right spirit, and guide me in the way of truth; thou only canst
know my desire for it. Make me submissive to thy decrees, and
prepare me for whatever fate awaits me hereafter.
23d. This has been a wretched day to me. I have had
another of those paroxysms of tears that I vainly thought had
ceased forever. I thought their fountains were dry. Struggle
on, brave spirit! thou dost buffet the billows right bravely.
Storms of wild thoughts have rushed over thee; thou hast fed
on the gall and wormwood of existence; "thou hast made idols
and hast found them clay"; thou hast looked over the broad
universe for one spot where thou mightest repose, but in vainall is inhospitable, dark, and forbidding - back thou comest to
thyself, weary, but finding no rest, yet thou dost struggle on; -
courage, good heart! thy pilgrimage shall soon be over, and
though no beam of brightness break through the gloom of the
future, yet on the mercy of thy Creator thou mayest calmly
repose.
2a4tb. This has been a day of continued occupation, and all
the thinking that I have done has been to wonder how! could
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