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....