of as "a dear, good woman,"
whose motherly life had absorbed her existence,--one of the witnesses
(martyrs) of the practical Christianity, who go, unseen and unknown,
to build the universal church of humanity, and whom we reverence
without naming them. Of Maria, the elder sister of Christina, I saw
less, but enough to know that the same ardent, beautiful religious
spirit burned in her, mute. In the years when I, later, saw most of
the family, Maria lived in a sisterhood. She had none of the genius or
the personal charm of her sister, but possessed the same elevation and
serene religious sentiment.

Of Clough I saw a good deal, though his occupation in a government
office left him not much leisure; and it seemed to me that, of all
public officials I ever knew, he was the most misplaced at an office
desk. Of fragile health and with the temperament of a poet, gentle as
a woman can be, he often reminded me of Pegasus in harness. I had a
commission from Norton to paint a small full-length portrait of him,
and had several sittings; but it did not get on to suit me, and his
being compelled to go to Italy for his health before I had finished
with it, for well or ill, put an end to it. He left me in occupation
of his house while they were away. Of all the people of the poet's
temper I ever knew, Clough was the least inclined to talk of poetry,
and but for the sensitive mouth and the dreamy eye, with a reflective
way he had when talking, as if an undercurrent of thought were going
on while he spoke, one might have taken him for a well-educated man
of business, a poet-banker, or publisher. Perhaps it is in the memory
more than it was in the life, but as I recall him there seemed to
be in him an arcanum of thought, something beyond what came into
every-day existence,--a life beyond the actual life, into which he
withdrew, and out of which he came to speak. I should have liked to
live beside him and know him always, for in that phase of him was
infinite study. What I did see, however, left on me the impression of
a man who was able only to sketch out the life he would have lived,--a
life of far greater capabilities than anything accomplished could
indicate.

In giving me the letter to Tom Hughes, Lowell had remarked that,
though he had never seen him, yet, as Hughes had edited his "Biglow
Papers," he thought he might assume an acquaintance sufficient to
warrant a letter of introduction. He was not mistaken, for Hughes did
the ful