[473]
Mrs. Fields once told me of the wonderful courage and cheerfulness which belonged to you, enabling you to bear up under exceptional trials, and I imagined you helping the sufferers with tenderness and counsel, but yet, nevertheless, I felt that there must be a bruising weight on your heart.
Dear, honored friend, you who are so ready to give warm fellowship, is it any comfort to you to be told that those afar off are caring for you in spirit, and will be happier for all good issues that may bring you rest?
I cannot, dare not, write more in my ignorance, lest I should be using unreasonable words. But I trust in your not despising this scrap of paper which tells you, perhaps rather for my relief than yours, that I am always in grateful, sweet remembrance of your goodness to me and your energetic labors for all.
It was two years or more before Mrs. Stowe replied to these words of sympathy.
Orange-blossom time, Mandarin, March 18, 1876.
My dear friend,--I always think of you when the orange trees are in blossom; just now they are fuller than ever, and so many bees are filling the branches that the air is full of a sort of still murmur.
And now I am beginning to hear from you every month in Harper's. It is as good as a letter.
“Daniel Deronda” has succeeded in awaking in my somewhat worn-out mind an interest.
So many stories are tramping over one's mind in every modern magazine nowadays that one is macadamized, so to speak.
It takes something unusual to make a sensation.
This does
