Ixii A LETTER ITROM MISS BREMER. 



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

 beauty." , , ,■ 



Our friend had-^even he — early seen the perfect he^u- 

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

 His criticism, unflinching as was his eye, looked upqn 

 things imperfect or mistaken with a quiet rebuke, more of 

 commiserajtion 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 Ms faith in its power would, as a heavenly 

 light, pierfae through his frowii. So the real diamond wUl, 

 ■ by a ray, of superjor power, criticize the false one, and 

 make it darken and shrink into nothingness. 



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

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

 than I, the stranger, who came to his hoine 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 b.et- 

 ter than all, saye one — the sweet wife who made all Ids 

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

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

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

 eyes, as those accustomed to snowy climates would be^more 

 ahve to the peculiar beauty of tropical, hfe, than? those who 

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

 our departed friend, I became aware of a Iqnd 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 elegants 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 



