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. Z. cotta
which her nature was most akin,- it was equally so
in the practical and often vexed problems of life. It
is perhaps not so untrue that no one is more absolutely and downright practical than one naturally
poetic and imaginative, if once fairly put to it-for it
was true of her.
In matters literary and artistic, many a young
writer and artist can attest to her helpfulness. The
unwilling, if not impatient, ear, ill concealed, of so
many self-absorbed strivers in these realms, was
never found in her. On the contrary, she would
delicately invite a confidence yearning to be imparted by those seeking a calm, clear judgment,
and the advice of a cultivated, esthetic mind.
As to her own creative activity, both in poetry
and her favorite branch in art,- life-modeling in
plaster, to be wrought in marble,-she was silent,
habitually so. In all our many years of friendly intercourse I can recall but a single instance where a
voluntary allusion was made by her to her poetry,
and an expression of opinion was unexpectedly
sought as to what she had done; a question which
revealed a sweet innate modesty in view of a literary
judgment like hers.
In her dealings with the world, its affairs and its
people, she showed in a marked degree two salient
qualities-tact, so inestimable in worldly matters,
more potent, for temporal success, than genius; and
common sense, the most uncommon sense of all.
How remarkably these served her purpose in the
earlier, trying, struggling years of her career, few of
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