he
career she is choosing, though I think also that she has much higher
intellectual capabilities than those which the vocation of a public
singer will ever call into play.... We are always so greatly in the dark
in our judgments of others, and so utterly incapable of rightly
estimating the motives of their actions and springs of their conduct,
that I think in the way of blame or praise, of vehement regret or
excessive satisfaction, we need not do much until we know more. I pray
God that she may endeavor to be true to herself, and to fulfill her own
perception of what is right. Whether she does so or not, neither I, nor
any one else, shall know; nor, indeed, is any one _really_ concerned in
the matter but herself. She possesses some of the intellectual qualities
from which the most exquisite pleasures are derived.... But she will not
be happy in this world; but, as nobody else is, she will not be
singular in that respect: and in the exercise of her uncommon gifts she
may find a profound pleasure, and an enjoyment of the highest kind apart
from happiness and its far deeper and higher springs.

Her voice haunts me like something precious that I have lost and go
vainly seeking for; other people play and sing her songs, and then,
though I seem to listen to them, I hear _her_ again, and seem to see
again that wonderful human soul which beamed from every part of her fine
face as she uttered those powerful sweet spells of love, and pity, and
terror. To me, her success seems almost a matter of certainty; for those
who can make such appeals to the sympathy of their fellow-beings are
pretty sure not to fail. Pasta is gone; Malibran is abroad; and
Schroeder-Devrient is the only great dramatic singer left, and she
remains but as the _remains_ of what she was; and I see no reason why
Adelaide should not be as eminent as the first, who certainly was a
glorious artist, though her acting surpassed her singing, and her voice
was not an exceptionally magnificent one....

This letter has suffered an interruption of several days, dear Harriet,
... and I and my baby have been sent after S----; and here I am on the
top of a hill in the village of Lenox, in what its inhabitants
tautologically call "Berk_shire county_," Massachusetts, with a view
before my window which would not disgrace the Jura itself.

Immediately sloping before me, the green hillside, on the summit of
which stands the house I am inhabiting, sinks softly down to a small