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

l etter of Conbolence
BY JAMES A. FROUDE, LONDON, ENGLAND.
MY DEAR MR. BOTTA:
HAVE often thought about you in your lone' liness. Your letter is sad, but not sadder
than it must have been, written as it is
with the fresh sense on you of your irreparable loss.
To have possessed such a wife, and to have had her
taken away from you, is the hardest misfortune that
could possibly have befallen you. You are not a person to whom the conventional consolations can give
relief, and the extraordinary charm of Mrs. Botta can
only make the recollection of her more poignant. I
have known many interesting women in my life, but
about her there was a peculiar grace which I have
never seen in any other person. She had brilliant
gifts, yet she never seemed to know that she had any
gifts at all. And she had that rarest of qualitiesthat she never thought about herself at all. Her life
seemed to be spent in disinterested care and affection
for others, and, while all who knew her admired her
intellect, her simplicity and unvarying kindness were
more admirable still. Nothing seemed to put her out
68