e most original and stimulative delineations of the
inner life of girlhood to be met with in literature. To cold and
shallow readers, this correspondence will prove an unknown tongue;
but those who can appreciate the reflection of wonderful
personalities, and the workings of intense sentiment, will prize it
as a unique treasure.

Bettine was electrical, magical, seeming ever to be overcharged with
the spirit of nature; Guenderode, cloudy, opalescent, suggesting a
spirit native of some realm above nature. The interplaying of the two
was strangely delightful to them both; and they made day after day
rich by hoarding and sharing what life brought, the wealth of their
souls. The fresh vitality of Bettine, her rushing inspiration, her
dithyrambic love of wild nature, breathed a balsamic breath over her
drooping friend, who yet had a more than counterbalancing depth of
consciousness to impart in return.

Guenderode, keyed too high for common companionship, too deep and
tenacious in her moods, of a delicacy preternaturally lofty and far-
reaching in its sensitiveness, was solitary, sad, thoughtful,
yearning, prescient of an early death; yet, by the whole impression
of her being, she gave birth, in those who lovingly looked on her, to
the surmise that she was mysteriously self-sufficing and happy.
Bettine writes to her, "I begin to believe thy feelings are enthroned
beyond clouds which cast their shadows on the earth; while thou,
borne on them, art revelling in celestial light." The best way to
indicate briefly what this friendship was, will be to quote a
selection of the characteristic expressions of it, though such a
compilation of fragments does great wrong to a correspondence so
compacted of the sparks of love and genius. Let those who find in
this relation only the expression of a fantastic sentimentality,
weigh what Sarah Austin says, a woman who speaks with the utmost
weight of authority which learning, experience, and wisdom can give:
"We, in England and France," Mrs. Austin says, "have no measure for
the character of a German girl, brought up in comparative solitude,
nurtured on poetry and religion, knowing little of the actual world,
but holding close converse with the ideal in its grandest forms. She
is capable of an enthusiasm we know not of."

At different times, Guenderode writes thus: "I have bad many thoughts
of thee, dear Bettine. Some nights ago I dreamed thou wast dead: I
wept bitterly at it; and the drea