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love for you, and respect and admiration; and I would have chosen you
out of all the world to take my place at Susy's side and Livy's in those
black hours.
Susy was a rare creature; the rarest that has been reared in Hartford in
this generation. And Livy knew it, and you knew it, and Charley Warner
and George, and Harmony, and the Hillyers and the Dunhams and the
Cheneys, and Susy and Lilly, and the Bunces, and Henry Robinson and
Dick
Burton, and perhaps others. And I also was of the number, but not in the
same degree--for she was above my duller comprehension. I merely knew
that she was my superior in fineness of mind, in the delicacy and
subtlety of her intellect, but to fully measure her I was not competent.
I know her better now; for I have read her private writings and sounded
the deeps of her mind; and I know better, now, the treasure that was
mine than I knew it when I had it. But I have this consolation: that
dull as I was, I always knew enough to be proud when she commended me
or
my work--as proud as if Livy had done it herself--and I took it as the
accolade from the hand of genius. I see now--as Livy always saw--that
she had greatness in her; and that she herself was dimly conscious of
it.
And now she is dead--and I can never tell her.
God bless you Joe--and all of your house.
937
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