Its quiet religious grace was grateful to
her spirit, which seemed to be yearning for peace from the cares that
had so vexed and heated the world about her for a year past.
I saw her frequently at these rooms, where, surrounded by her books
and papers, she used to devote her mornings to her literary labors.
Once or twice I called in the morning, and found her quite immersed
in manuscripts and journals. Her evenings were passed usually in
the society of her friends, at her own rooms, or at theirs. With the
pleasant circle of Americans, then living in Florence, she was on the
best terms, and though she seemed always to bring with her her own
most intimate society, and never to be quite free from the company of
busy thoughts, and the cares to which her life had introduced her,
she was always cheerful, and her remarkable powers of conversation
subserved on all occasions the kindliest, purposes of good-will in
social intercourse.
The friends with whom she seemed to be on the terms of most sympathy,
were an Italian lady, the Marchesa Arconati Visconti,[A]--the
exquisite sweetness of whose voice interpreted, even to those who knew
her only as a transient acquaintance, the harmony of her nature,--and
some English residents in Florence, among whom I need only name Mr.
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