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

annc ~. Z. Lotta
pure and lofty spirit and exquisite artistic finish had
so impressed me that when she called to see me
during my first visit to New-York, I felt that in
wishing to know me she did me great honor-a
feeling I never lost. I was then fresh from unconventional village life, knowing little of literary or
metropolitan society, while she was, for one so
young, an accomplished woman of the world-yet
not worldly. She was wise without guile. As I
said, she was a great aid to me in many ways.
Miss Lynch resided, at that time, in a modest house
down-town —which was not called "down-town"
then. Her home was simple in its appointments,
but marked by that artistic elegance which always
characterized her surroundings. With her lived her
widowed mother, an old-school gentlewoman, to
whom she was devoted for many years, with a filial
love that almost amounted to a passion,- fond,
patient, passing all praise. To me there was some thing pathetic in this unconscious sacrifice and unfal tering service. No ambition for intellectual or social
distinction- not the strong allurements of art or
brilliant society, not even the claims of a later and
most dear love had power to render her neglect ful of that sacred filial duty, unfaithful to the primal
cult of the heart.
The time of my first acquaintance with Miss Lynch
was the time of Fanny Kemble Butler and Catherine
Sedgwick; of Bryant, Halleck, Poe, and Willis,-all
knowing and honoring her. Besides these friends,
she had about her a goodly company of choice spirits,
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