The gums
oozing from wounded boughs she burned as incense in her oratory; but
in outward relations she was munificent with sympathy.
'Let me be, Theodora, a bearer of heavenly gifts to my
fellows,'
is written in her journals, and her life fulfilled the aspiration.
The more one observed her, the more surprising appeared the variety,
earnestness, and constancy of her friendships. Far and wide reached
her wires of communication, and incessant was the interchange of
messages of good-will. She was never so preoccupied and absorbed as
to deny a claimant for her affectionate interest; she never turned
her visitors back upon themselves, mortified and vexed at being
misunderstood. With delicate justice she appreciated the special
form, force, tendency of utterly dissimilar characters and her heart
responded to every appeal alike of humblest suffering or loftiest
endeavor. In the plain, yet eloquent phrase of the backwoodsman, "the
string of her door-latch was always out," and every wayfarer was free
to share the shelter of her roof, or a seat beside her hearth-stone.
Or, rather, it might be said, in symbol of her wealth of spirit, her
palace, with its galleries of art, its libraries and festal-halls,
welcomed all guests who could enjoy and use them.
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