A LETTER FROM MISS BREMER. 



and who answers, " It is that I have early seen the perfect 

 beauty/' 



Our friend had even he early seen the perfect beau- 

 ty, but he was not surly when he saw what was not so. 

 His criticism, unflinching as was his eye, looked upon 

 things imperfect or mistaken with a quiet rebuke, more of 

 commiseration than of scorn. A smile of gentle, good- 

 humored sarcasm, or a simple, earnest statement of the 

 truth, were his modes of condemnation, and the beauty of 

 the Ideal and his faith in its power would, as a heavenly 

 light, pierce through his frown. So the real diamond will, 

 by a ray of superior power, criticize the false one, and 

 make it darken and shrink into nothingness. 



Oh ! let me speak of my friend to you, his friends, 

 though you saw him more and knew him for a longer time 

 than I, the stranger, who came to his home and went, as a 

 passing bird. Let me speak of him to you, for, though 

 you saw him more and knew him longer, I loved him bet- 

 ter than all, save one the sweet wife who made all his 

 days days of peace and pleasantness. And the eye of love 

 is clairvoyant. Let me plead also with you my right as a 

 stranger; for the stranger comes to a new world with fresh 

 eyes, as those accustomed to snowy climates would be more 

 alive to the peculiar beauty of tropical life, than those who 

 see it every day. And it was so that, when I saw him, 

 our departed friend, I became aware of a kind of individual 

 beauty and finish, that I had little anticipated to find in 

 the New World, and indeed, had never seen before, any 

 where. 



At war with the elegant refinements and beauties of 

 life, to which I was secretly bound by strong sympathies, 

 but which I looked upon as Samson should have looked upon 

 Delilah, and in love with the ascetic severities of life, with 



