rous,
that I nearly staggered under it--not chaff--good heavens! no--but
would have been chaff, only it wasn't, for they can't chaff.

Kitty Kermode, _alias_ Kinvig, was the best. She said a very sweet and
profound thing (but I can't phrase it as I ought) about the value of
friendship, as compared with that of love. A little happy creature of
some seventeen giggled in a dark corner, but I let her giggle; the old
woman pierced me through and through. Oh _fortunati_--Oh indeed! And
these dear things seemed to know that their lot was a happy one. _Quod
faustum!_ Unutterably precious to me is the woman, the native of the
hills, almost my own age, or a little younger, whose spirit is set upon
the finest springs, and her sympathies have an almost masculine depth,
and a length of reflection that wins your confidence and stays your
sinking heart.

The lady can't do it. This class, of what I suppose you would call
peasant women (I won't have the word), seems made for the purpose of
rectifying everything, and redressing the balance, inspiring us with
that awe which the immediate presence of absolute womanhood creates in
us. The plain, practical woman, with the outspoken throat and the
eternal eyes. Oh, mince me, madam, mince me your pretty mincings!
Deliberate your dainty reticences! Balbutient loveliness, avaunt! Here
is a woman that talks like a bugle, and, in everything, sees God.

[Sidenote: _T.E. Brown_]

... The wreck of the _Drummond Castle_ is much in my mind. What lovely
creatures those French are! The women and children, carrying their poor
drowned sisters! that little baby in its coffin decked with roses! Don't
you yearn towards those dear souls? What are Agincourt and Waterloo in
the presence of such sweetness? Well, I love them anyway, and shall
brood over them and pray for them while I live....

[Sidenote: _T.E. Brown_]

I am generally rather a happy "sort" of man, but your letter makes me
very happy. How kind you are! Up in the morning betimes to catch people
still in their beds warm with a generous enthusiasm, to surprise their
sympathies before they had "faded into the light of common day," and to
collect all their "loving" words for me. That was a good and faithful
act; and I am deeply grateful.

Yes, the man was right. I do love the poor wastrels, and you are right,
I have it from my father. He had a way of taking for granted, not only
the innate virtue of these outcasts, but their unquestioned
res