all my plans,
even to the least important, were laid with some reference to her
judgment or her pleasure. I always knew it would be the greatest
calamity of my life to lose her, but not till the blow fell did I
know how heavy it would be, and what a solitude the earth would
seem without her."

To another brother he said:--

"Her life seemed to me to close prematurely, so useful was she, and
so much occupied in doing good; and yet she was in her seventieth
year. It is now more than forty-five years since we were
married,--a long time, as the world goes, for husband and wife to
live together. Bitter as the separation is, I give thanks that she
has been spared to me so long, and that for nearly a half-century I
have had the benefit of her counsel and her example."

In a brief memoir of their intercourse, prepared for the eyes of his
daughters alone, he said:--

"I never wrote a poem that I did not repeat to her, and take her
judgment upon it. I found its success with the public to be
precisely in proportion to the impression it made upon her. She
loved my verses, and judged them kindly, but did not like them all
equally well."

One who knew her well thus describes her character:--

"Never did poet have a truer companion, a sincerer spiritual
helpmate, than Mr. Bryant in his wife. Refined in taste, and
elevated in thought, she was characterized alike by goodness and
gentleness. Modest in her ways, she lived wholly for him; his
welfare, his happiness, his fame, were the chief objects of her
ambition. To smooth his pathway, to cheer his spirit, to harmonize
every discordant element of life, were purposes for the
accomplishment of which no sacrifice on her part could be too
great."

Another who visited them familiarly in their home wrote:--

"In the autumn of 1863, we visited Mr. and Mrs. Bryant at West
Point, where they occupied Mr. John Bigelow's charming cottage,
'The Squirrels.' From there we accompanied them to Roslyn, and
spent a week under their own roof-tree. How much we enjoyed those
days, I need not say. Mrs. Bryant's health was very delicate, and
she sat much in her large arm-chair by the open wood-fire which
blazed under the old tiles of the chimney-place. Mr. Bryant sat at
her feet when he read in the autumn twilight those exquisite line