SD2509. Harriet G. Hosmer to Wayman Crow

Published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 29, 310 (in part).

Antigniano

Aug. 27, 1861.

Dear Mr. Crow:

I doubt if you have ever heard of this place, and I cannot wonder, since I never knew of its existence, having lived so near it, till a week before I came here. …

Sorrow has been upon us, here too, in the death of Mrs. Browning. Had you known her, no one could better have appreciated, or more warmly have admired her, for her truly angelic character. She lives in my heart, and in my memory, as the most perfect human being I have ever known. To have seen her, and to have been admitted to her friendship, I must always consider as one of the happiest events of my life, inasmuch as in the study of her character one saw to what a degree of beauty human nature may attain even in this unfavoring world. The calmness of her death, too, was a fitting close to the beauty of her life, for after thanking her husband for all his devotion to her, she laid her head upon his shoulder and died as peacefully as if she were going to sleep. …

Text: Harriet Hosmer: Letters and Memories, ed. Cornelia Carr (New York, 1912), pp. 179–180.

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